The Social Value of the Intellectual Commons:

2021 ◽  
pp. 119-128
Author(s):  
Antonios Broumas

Elaborating on key findings of previous chapters this chapter proposes more abstract statements on commons-based value, its sources, forms and mode of circulation and, finally, the value crisis challenging the interrelation between intellectual commons and capital. It is structured into the five following sections. The first offers a working definition of commons-based value in accordance with the findings of the research. The second determines productive communal activity as the source of commons-based value. The third analyses the forms of commons-based value. The fourth sketches out the basic characteristics of the mode of commons-based value circulation. The fifth and final substantive section examines the crises of value encountered in the sphere of the intellectual commons. Overall, this chapter offers a social theory of commons-based value circulation with normative dimensions in respect of the morality of the intellectual commons. With empirical data it confirms the presence of an alternative proto-mode of value circulation based on the intellectual commons, which supports the reproduction of the intellectual bases of our societies in dialectical interrelation to the dominant capitalist mode thus thereby rendering commons-based value visible to activists, researchers and policymakers and fuelling practices, policies and laws that might truly unleash their potential.


Author(s):  
Antonios Broumas

Recapitulating earlier chapters that established the social value of commons-based activity the chapter offers a unified normative theory of the intellectual commons in support of an intellectual commons law. As the normative denouement of the book, this chapter down the foundations for the critical normative theory of the intellectual commons and the moral justification of an intellectual commons law and is structured into six interlinked sections starting with a statement of the basic tenets of a critical normative theory of the intellectual commons. The subsequent four sections examine the normative dimensions of the intellectual commons, i.e. personhood, work, value and community. Concluding sections briefly outline the contours of an intellectual commons law in alignment with the normative evaluations of the chapter. The ethical arguments of the model overall have established the moral grounds and present the framework for a distinct and independent body of law for the protection and promotion of the intellectual commons beyond the inherent limitations of intellectual property law.


Author(s):  
Antonios Broumas

The purpose of this chapter is to outline the methodology of the author’s research that aims to identify the contemporary manifestations of commonification in the circulation of social value and, thus, grasp the actual formations of the intellectual commons, both offline and online, in the current socio-historical context. This research decrypts the generation, circulation, pooling together and redistribution of social value observed in the intellectual commons communities of the research sample, with the aim of showing the importance of the intellectual commons for social reproduction. This chapter sets out the methodological bases and the design of the research in three sections. The first of these spells out the methodological orientation of the research. The second unveils the design of the research. The third describes the coding process followed in relation to data collected from eight Greek intellectual commons communities, which constitute the sample of the current research. Overall, this chapter lays down the methodological foundations of the research and the framework to used elicit the research findings and conclusions exhibited in the following chapters and thus supports its overall normative argumentation that the intellectual commons have significant moral value, which justifies their independent protection and promotion by the law.


Author(s):  
Antonios Broumas

What are the characteristics and manifestations of the intellectual commons? This chapter investigates the dialectics between commons-based and monetary values, in an effort to specify the mutual influences between them and to answer this question. It proceeds with an analysis of the dialectics between commons-based and monetary values, as recorded in the study. It also deals with the comparison of value circulation between the offline and online communities of the sample. Its key finding is that commons-based value circuits are in constant contestation with monetary values in communities of the intellectual commons. Furthermore, the chapter offers a view of the actual forms that such contestation takes and its impact on the evolution of the intellectual commons. As a corollary, the current chapter on commons-based and monetary value dialectics reveals that communities of the intellectual commons formulate their own specific modes of value circulation and value pooling, which come into contentious interrelation with the corresponding mode of commodity and capital circulation and accumulation. Such a confrontation at the core of this dialectic permeates and frames the communities of the intellectual commons that are suppressed by the dominant value system of commodity markets and its universal equivalent of value in the form of money. Such pressure, may even lead to the extinction of intellectual commons communities, comes into contradiction with the overall conclusion regarding their social value and potential. Yet communities of the intellectual commons contain and emanate a wealth of social values, which ought to be protected through legal means.


2013 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 209-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benoît Testé ◽  
Samantha Perrin

The present research examines the social value attributed to endorsing the belief in a just world for self (BJW-S) and for others (BJW-O) in a Western society. We conducted four studies in which we asked participants to assess a target who endorsed BJW-S vs. BJW-O either strongly or weakly. Results showed that endorsement of BJW-S was socially valued and had a greater effect on social utility judgments than it did on social desirability judgments. In contrast, the main effect of endorsement of BJW-O was to reduce the target’s social desirability. The results also showed that the effect of BJW-S on social utility is mediated by the target’s perceived individualism, whereas the effect of BJW-S and BJW-O on social desirability is mediated by the target’s perceived collectivism.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Zachary Nowak ◽  
Bradley M. Jones ◽  
Elisa Ascione

This article begins with a parody, a fictitious set of regulations for the production of “traditional” Italian polenta. Through analysis of primary and secondary historical sources we then discuss the various meanings of which polenta has been the bearer through time and space in order to emphasize the mutability of the modes of preparation, ingredients, and the social value of traditional food products. Finally, we situate polenta within its broader cultural, political, and economic contexts, underlining the uses and abuses of rendering foods as traditional—a process always incomplete, often contested, never organic. In stirring up the past and present of polenta and placing it within both the projects of Italian identity creation and the broader scholarly literature on culinary tradition and taste, we emphasize that for so-called traditional foods to be saved, they must be continually reinvented.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 158-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Min Zhou ◽  
Xiangyi Li

We consider cross-space consumption as a form of transnational practice among international migrants. In this paper, we develop the idea of the social value of consumption and use it to explain this particular form of transnationalism. We consider the act of consumption to have not only functional value that satisfies material needs but also a set of nonfunctional values, social value included, that confer symbolic meanings and social status. We argue that cross-space consumption enables international migrants to take advantage of differences in economic development, currency exchange rates, and social structures between countries of destination and origin to maximize their expression of social status and to perform or regain social status. Drawing on a multisited ethnographic study of consumption patterns in migrant hometowns in Fuzhou, China, and in-depth interviews with undocumented Chinese immigrants in New York and their left-behind family members, we find that, despite the vulnerabilities and precarious circumstances associated with the lack of citizenship rights in the host society, undocumented immigrants manage to realize the social value of consumption across national borders and do so through conspicuous consumption, reciprocal consumption, and vicarious consumption in their hometowns even without being physically present there. We conclude that, while cross-space consumption benefits individual migrants, left-behind families, and their hometowns, it serves to revive tradition in ways that fuel extravagant rituals, drive up costs of living, reinforce existing social inequality, and create pressure for continual emigration.


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