of diggers, fences, freedom and reclaiming the commons

"Diggers" is a term used for Australian and Kiwi  ANZACs - soldiers doing a great job of digging trenches for colonial armies and now fighting for the latest imperial Empire. It is a term that needs to be reclaimed  and used  as it once was . Diggers  were  Levelers seeking a level playing field for a fairer society. Digger were then Leveling fences and reclaiming the commons for communities of common people. Being a Digger today means reclaiming  the very idea of Development and ending the increasing 'Enclosure' of not just land but Technologies  and even the basic needs for Life itself.

In 1649, a group of English communists started fighting the notion of private property in what became known as the commons movement. They were using the unstable period in England’s history to introduce a new economy, one that would see land, wells and other means of wealth as shared resources. This group would prevent a small class of people from collecting and consolidating the rights to basic human life, such as water and food. In an annual celebration that doubled as a protest, they would circle the village commons and level or dig up any hedges and fences that designated spots of private ownership. They became known as the “levelers” or “diggers.”

The movement, which was subsequently quelled in 1651 by landowners and the Council of State, has seen a revival in the past decade. It remained dormant for so many years because of its fundamental threat to modern economics, putting community needs at the center of society rather than those of the individual. 

The commons movement is a reaction to exploitative free market capitalism. It rejects the notion that resources, spaces and other assets are purely a means to wealth. It condemns the privatization of public works, such as the parking meters in Chicago, which allows the sovereign wealth fund that controls it to increase the rates.

But the commons is not restricted to natural resources—it extends to the Web, science and other technologies.

The Internet has become the setting for a fierce battle between public advocates that would like to designate forums as open and free, and companies that seek to control more of its content through bills like the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). Many programmers have handed over their copyright ownership to the public in the form of General Public Licenses and Creative Commons licenses, which allow the public to use and contribute to forums without having to pay for usage. It also keeps companies from using personal information, as with Facebook, to target potential consumers.

Instead, he says, we need to protect the commons with rules that bar individual ownership of that property. It is not, however, a space that is left as a free-for-all; it still has regulations and state recognition that prevent private groups from exploiting it.

The commons introduces a “role for organized self-governance as opposed to government,” Bollier says, “although they can be made complimentary.” The community manages the resource and has an involved interest in keeping others from decreasing its supply, he says, because the license belongs to the public.

But the commons is not restricted to natural resources—it extends to the Web, science and other technologies.

Additionally, one-fifth of the human genome is privately owned through patents. Salt Lake City-based Myriad Genetics, for example, owns the breast cancer susceptibility gene, which guarantees monopoly control over research into cancer. It discourages many other researchers from exploring treatment, something that could ultimately stunt our capacity for medical advances.

“Enclosure,” Bollier says about patents and private ownership, “is about dispossession. It’s a process by which the powerful convert a shared community resource into a market commodity … This is known as development.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/an_economic_alternative_to_exploitative_free_market_capitalism_20130131/