Day: May 8, 2018

do you have any recs in regards to the commons/debunking the tragedy of the comms? (I am already reading caliban and the witch.) im attempting to write an essay exploring animal neutral territories and how commons are ecologically/socially beneficial for all

slashmarks:

kropotkhristian:

kropotkhristian:

Yes! Anything by the economist Elinor Ostrom, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics, is a good starting place. She came up with a list of “rules” that would make the commons work, and big surprise, it actually just sounds like anarcho-communism.

I also feel like I should sum up some of the response to the “tragedy of the commons” so that people who don’t end up reading more can have a ready response to it.

The “Tragedy of the commons” assumes a profit motive from the beginning. It assumes that, given a common resource, everybody will seek to both produce and take as much as possible for themselves from the common resource in order to maximize profit. It does not even consider production for need as a possibility. A common example of the “tragedy” would be if a group of people were given a common field for cows to graze in, each individual would seek to maximize their own cow herd. This would deplete the grazing field and result in nobody having a field to graze in. This is the “tragedy.”

However, why should people seek to maximize their own cow herd, if they don’t plan on producing for anything beyond need? Does a family need more than two or three cows for milking? What if the community had agreed on a certain number, and there would be local community repercussions if somebody stepped out of line? Ostrom brings up many of these responses and proves that self-governing commons systems work better than either state-sponsored commons or private ownership.

So if you ever hear somebody bring up the “tragedy of the commons” again, you can actually just point out that the whole thing assumes that we are working in a capitalist system, and that people will respond to the commons in a capitalist way. We are trying to dismantle capitalism, so the “tragedy of the commons” can’t possibly apply to what we are attempting to build.

I don’t have a particular source in mind, but the Tragedy of the Commons isn’t an abstract concept, it’s a reference to the real enclosure of commonly used ground in England in the Early Modern period, which was done over popular protest for the benefit of the nobility. The commons in question had persisted for centuries without being “used up,” until they were privatized. Look up enclosure in England and you will find a variety of sources on the subject.

(#this is not a thouoght experiment and you don’t have to treat it like one #people who do are misinformed or lying)

stillhidden:

“Attorney General Jeff Sessions ramped up the Trump administration’s already aggressive immigration rhetoric Monday, vowing to separate children from their undocumented parents if they try to enter the country illegally. “If you are smuggling a child then we will prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you as required by law,” Sessions said during a law enforcement conference in Scottsdale, Ariz. “If you don’t like that, then don’t smuggle your children over the border.” The “zero tolerance policy” means any adult who enters the U.S. illegally will be jailed and prosecuted in federal courts, Sessions said.
Children will be separated from their parents and taken into the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services’ refugee office, which will either find relatives in the U.S. they can stay with or send them to private shelters, according to Sessions. “It’s that simple,” Sessions said. Sessions’ remarks prove a radical departure from previous directives to keep undocumented immigrants and their children together in detention centers. The announcement comes days after Sessions deployed 35 federal prosecutors and 18 immigration judges to handle an accumulation of asylum cases exacerbated by the so-called “caravan” of Central American migrants who arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border last month. The migrants, many of whom are fleeing gang violence in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, are trying to apply for existing asylum benefits, but President Trump has painted them as invaders seeking to take advantage of American laws. Sessions echoed that rhetoric Monday. “We are dealing with a massive influx of illegal aliens across our Southwest Border,” the attorney general said. “But we’re not going to stand for this.” Pueblo Sin Fronteras, one of the immigration advocacy groups credited with organizing the “refugee caravan,” blasted Sessions’ announcement as a sign of the Trump administration’s “heartlessness and hate.” “Tearing children from the arms of parents who are trying to save them from violence and persecution in their home countries is unconscionably cruel,” Alex Mensing, a project coordinator with the group, said in a statement. “Refugee parents aren’t smuggling their children, they’re saving their lives.””

—

The New York Daily News, “Attorney General Sessions Says Undocumented Immigrants Will be ‘Separated’ From Their Children.”

Assholes gonna asshole.

purplexeyed:

firesnaps:

I had someone tell me that dislike of Umbridge is usually from ingrained sexism toward female villains. I kind of stared in shock – I mean I love my lady villains. I love nasty female villains. I love sneaky and clever female villains. I love female villains that wrap themselves up in what the patriarchy expects of them and uses those expectations to smash someone upside the head. 

I tried to explain my hatred of Umbridge isn’t that she’s full of traditionally feminine attributes.  

It’s that she’s lawful evil. 

If you did an alignment chart, no one would represent lawful evil more than Umbridge. I don’t think there’s ever been a character that better sums up lawful evil. 

And, to me, lawful evil is the most terrifying and disturbing evil there is. 

To me, lawful evil is the shit that gets thousands of people killed while the person responsible walks away feeling like they did their duty. 

Evil forces like Bellatrix and Voldemort are fairy tales. They’re the bad guys a good guy can chase away with a sword or wand. 

Umbridge is that evil that really does lurk in the hearts of men (and women). The realness, the plausibility of it, makes her amazingly uncomfortable. 

So, yeah, I can’t get as excited about her as a fantasy book creation as easily as some other female villains. Not because she’s a woman, or because of her gender presentation, but because she represents a sort of evil that’s far, far too close to home. 

And people hating Umbridge? Also tends to be a hell of a lot more personal. We’ve all had someone in a position of authority abuse their power at some point or another – I literally cannot think of a single person alive who hasn’t had to deal with that at least once.

Facing down a genocidal maniac who murdered your parents and countless others on a quest for blood purity is…not so common.

A teacher who picks on you because they can? A professor grades you horribly because they don’t like you and makes sure you know it? A boss who ‘accidentally’ loses your requests for time off or makes a point to assign you the jobs everyone hates all the time? These things are a dime a dozen.