The General Commons

Wikipedia has this description of the Commons which I think is a very narrow definition and there is a great amount of benefit to looking at the notion of Commons in a more general application to conceptual "social" things owned by society and their manipulation and extraction of value by the few at the expense of the many who own the general "social" commons and have increasingly less ability to defend them from special interest predation for economic benefit and social and political power acquisition.

From Wikipedia: (the entire description here)

Commons refers to the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, including natural materials such as air, water, and a habitable earth. These resources are held in common, not owned privately. ^[1] The resources held in common can include everything from natural resources and common land to software.^[2] The commons contains public property and private property, over which people have certain traditional rights. When commonly held property is transformed into private property this process alternatively is termed "enclosure" or more commonly, "privatization." A person who has a right in, or over, common land jointly with another or others is called a commoner.^[3]


This is a follow on to my previous post discussing of Fraud as a Bubble.  General fraud which is a violation of the public trust.  The public trust being a general Public Common.

Bill Black discusses Control Fraud here today.   Full disclosure here:  Bill Black is my hero and I believe that everything he says is absolutely true.  He is that one honest man that Diogenes searched for.  I admire Diogenes also.

Regarding what Bill writes:  Free private enterprise operates in the broadly defined Public Commons that is our society.  Yes, of course is also operates in accordance with the defined controls of government which restrict it and control it to some extent that is viewed by free private enterprise as a violation of its ideological right to operate in any fashion that it pleases.  Almost like the the gun right advocates.  The greater sphere or the greatest sphere that free private enterprise operates in is the Public Commons.  The place that everyone operates in: our social structure fabric of society defined by and regulated by the common things we all subscribe to, some of which are more formally defined by law.  Define something by law and there is always an appropriate legal remedy for its violation.  Otherwise there are only social remedies for violation of standards and expectations