Public Assets, Private Profits -- a report worth reading

[Gary Ruskin]

Commercial Alert						May 1, 2001

David Bollier has written a splendid report on the commercial enclosure
of the commons and common assets, called Public Assets, Private Profits:
Reclaiming the American Commons in an Age of Market Enclosure. 

The report is especially useful because its scope is broad.  It
describes in detail the commercialization and commodification of so
much, including our culture, natural resources, information resources,
children's lives, intellectual property, the Internet, federal drug
research, the electromagnetic spectrum, etc.  It reminds us of why the
commons and the gift economy are so important to strong communities and
a good society.

The report is available at:
<http://www.newamerica.net/events/transcripts_texts/PA_Report.pdf>.

A longer version of the report will be available in book form from
Routledge next spring, under the title of Silent Theft.  You can contact
the author, David Bollier, at <bollier@essential.org>.
-----------------------

Ralph Nader founded Commercial Alert in 1998 to keep the commercial
culture within its proper sphere, and to prevent it from exploiting
children and subverting the higher values of family, community,
environmental integrity and democracy.  

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-- 
Gary Ruskin | gary@essential.org
Commercial Alert | Congressional Accountability Project
http://www.commercialalert.org | http://www.congressproject.org
phone: 202.296.2787 or 503.295.6916