Sergio Amadeu da Silveira - Cidadania e Redes Digitais

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c i t i z e n s h i p a n d d i g i t a l n e t w o r k s
be based on social standards that do not need property relationship 4 .
The common assets can be open to all, as it happens with the air we breathe or
the water in the oceans. They can also be of unlimited access to a community, such
as common pastures for cattle or common cultivation fields. From another point of
view, they can be submitted to regulation or not. Furthermore, one asset may have a
double bias of consideration. Benkler highlights the example of air: for breathing, it
is free and gratuitous, but its contamination is subject to regulation and to the payment
of taxes in some cases. The most important and significant open procommons
are Science and Culture until the 19 th century. In the 20 th century, one significant
part of the culture ceased being a procommon, as well as some areas of scientific investigation.
In the 21 st century, according to Benkler, both science and culture are at
risk of a progressive and unlimited privatization 5 . The intentions of patenting mathematic
algorithms that are fundamental for the production of software, and John
Crai Venter’s will of patenting drawings of living beings, are examples of to which
extent science and technology are subject to a deep mercantilist pressure. This gradual
appropriation can suppose a notable brake to innovation and cultural diffusion.
As opposite, the procommon supposes an environment of culture democratization
and citizenship development. Due to it, the networks shall be maintained as common
assets ensuring, according to L. Lessig 6 , the freedom of its users. Such potentialized
citizenship is manifested through virtual social networks, blogs, videoblogs,
interchange communities, Open Source and Free Knowledge movements etc. But
it is also manifested through the powerful movement of power relocation from the
center of the system to its periphery, as the communities of interest are called.
stances. It is like saying that, in certain cases, collaborating, being ethical and restricting the search of
personal benefit pays off. The ethic principles would not be a restriction to the principles of practical
rationality. Much to the contrary, they would be a requirement of the very practical rationality. In other
words, being rational implies in being ethical. Even though the universality of this principle is yet to be
demonstrated, there is the possibility of a convergence between duty and interest in something other
than a mere conjecture. This is the ethical paradigm on which the movements of Free Software and
Free Knowledge are based. Without this convergence, ethics and economics could gather again as a
variety of a general values theory.
4. This is the base of the work by which Elinor Ostrom (1990) won the 2009 Economy Nobel Prize.
Ostrom demonstrates that the management of the commons, against Hardin’s opinion, is not only
possible, but necessary.
5. Benkler (2003).
6. Lessig (2004).
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