terminology : public vs state vs commons

[Dante-Gabryell Monson]

I somehow feel there lacks a distinction what concerns understandings of the words "commons"... "public"... and "state".

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By "public authorities", i guess we mean "state" , but what do we mean by "state" ?

I already went through a short exchange on this topic with Michel,... but not sure if there is a consensus.
I like Michel using the term "mediation" ,
and building on this word, I ask myself if "a state" is a set of "protocols" set and used to maintain mediation between dominant social agents;
"monetary systems" being one of such dominant protocols.

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Is such state ( public authority ) really public ?

What makes "public" in "public authority" ? Transparency ? Accountability ?

...What I often see is "property controlled by authority".

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A draft definition I feel like using for "state" :

A "state" may be, according to the context, a "node" through which decision making mediation can happen between various intertwining dominant social relations,
to set "protocols"

"protocols" which in turn can contribute in maintaining such "states of contextual state" through which dominant social relations can maintain mediation to defend their interests.

Yet, when these protocols do not, or can not apply to other "contextual states enabling mediation between social relations" , these other contextual states that can create their own protocols to maintain their own interests will become parallel "states".

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Are commons defined relative to individual context ? Are there "common public commons" ( the ocean ? ), and "private public commons" ( a public university library ? ) ?

Is "public" relative to individual context... ?

How are these terminologies used ?
Are these terminologies sometimes confused with each other ?
If yes, why ? and for what purpose ?

[Michel Bauwens]

From http://p2pfoundation.net/Common, which has links to the terms mentioned just below:


More and more the concept of the common seems to become a third term, alongside the private and the collective.

The common consists of a series of inalienable rights that are hold by all individuals, rather than collective aspects governed by a separate sovereign body, and different from the individualized/privatized aspects of existence.

The difference is explained in our entry on Common Rights, from an article by Dan Sullivan.

It translates into new forms of Common Property that has it own rules and theory, applying to Common Goods and Common Pool Resources, sometimes governed by specialized Common Good Licenses such as the General Public License for software.

The concept of the common is therefore essential for building a society based on the Common Good, and is the key to understand Peer Production and how it socially reproduces itself through a process of Circulation of the Common

Common proprerty forms for physical goods that can be governed through Commons-based approaches can take the form of Trusts

And from the entry on common rights, http://p2pfoundation.net/Common_Rights


Description 1

common rights = natural rights common to each individual

differ from

collective rights = those that have been delegated to the community or its government

Source: http://geolib.com/sullivan.dan/commonrights.html


Description 2

Massimo De Angelis:

"It is because this organic relation between the activity of the commoners and the commons that “commons” rights differ, in their constitution, from legal rights such as “human”, “political” or “social” rights. In the latter sense, a “right” is a legal entitlement to have or obtain something or to act in a certain way. A title deed constitutes evidence of such a right.

For the medieval English commoners instead,

- common rights are embedded in a particular ecology with its local husbandry. . . . Commoners first think not of title deeds, but human deeds: how will this land be tilled? Does it require manuring? What grows there? They begin to explore. One might call it a natural attitude. Second, commoning is embedded in a labor process; it inheres in a particular praxis of field, upland, forest, marsh, coast. Common rights are entered into by labor. Third, commoning is collective. Fourth, commoning, being independent of the state, is independent also of the temporality of the law and state. It goes deep into human history" (Linabough 2008: 44-45). (http://www.taller-commons.com/downloads/angelis.pdf)