The New Commons vs. The Second Enclosure Movement: Comments on an Emerging Agenda for Development Research

Peter Evans, Studies in Comparative International Development, Summer 2005, Vol. 40, No. 2, pp. 85-94.

The relationship between property rights and development has always been a central
concern for both theorists and policy makers. The growing role of information and
communications technology in the economies of both North and South intensifies
the salience of this issue. This commentary extends the discussion of the two visions
of property rights that are introduced by Weber and Bussell (2005). In one, property
rights are restructured along the lines pioneered by the open-source software com-
munity to create a “new commons” of productive tools; in the other, Northern cor-
porations successfully defend their politically protected monopoly rights over
intangible assets and even extend them through a “second enclosure movement” to
an ever larger set of ideas, information, and images. Currently, the second enclosure
movement remains dominant, but which of these visions is likely to predominate in
the longer run depends on the interests and potential power of key actors and on the
possibilities for alliances among them—not just Northern corporations, but South-
ern states and private entrepreneurs, as well.