I was drawn to this comment by Richard Seymour in the Guardian this morning:
What Apple has effected, just like Microsoft before it, is an act of enclosure. It has taken public property and commodified it. It has done this with the support and protection of the US government
This is spot on, and I admit, entirely consistent with my own theory of what might be happening within our own economies.
Multinational corporations are effectively capturing public benefit for private gain with the active connivance of what I called cowardly politicians in The Courageous State.
The Commons are our rightful property to share communally. There have always been elites who have sought to capture them. The aim is to restore them to their rightful ownership for the public good.
That is, I think, the issue that is at the heart of the rebellion that is driving the Yes vote in Scotland. It needs to drive social and economic reform throughout then UK and beyond.
The idea of the Commons does not challenge the right to private property. What it does do is draw an appropriate line around what is private and what is communal that has been lost. I do not know if we can redraw it. But we can try.
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Shocking that people should use state invented internet and state invented GPS for their own ends. “Where on Earth” would we be otherwise, eh 😉
I think you will find fees were paid
I’ll re-phrase. Fees paid to whom?
Two responses
One, I could not tell. I am subject to confidentiality obligations
Two, practically I have no recall 14 years after the event
Interesting piece by Seamus Milne in today’s Guardian which calls into question the extent to which Scotland will escape the neoliberal project, Richard (particularly under the SNP, which, as he rightly points out, is in bed with all sorts of neoliberal entities). Given the event you are at I dare say that’s being discussed.
Anyway, I hope your presentation goes well, as I’m sure it will.
I have argued – and did last night – that the SNP would make a big mistake Yes means SNP
I get a very strong impression that Yes means a desire for change – and Alex Salmond might find he’s Churchill – he may win the war and yet lose afterwards
It’s clear people reject the consensus – but the SNP embraces it
I wonder if Scotland with a yes vote can resist the neoliberal project without first breaking up the banking system and considering a new currency? Even if it did this there would be the global grip of the tentacles of the ‘vampire squid’ which most seem impotent to resist. maybe the Scots should consider being part of the BRIC?
Simon
We’re discussing this right now
Richard