SOCI-102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 21: Enclosure, Superprofit, Business Cycle
14 Dec 2017
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Document Summary
Universal sense of alienation; loss of sense of collective community (we dictate our relationships in terms of money and work) Loss of the human as inherently valuable; human value derives from ability to produce and consume. Loss of nature and our relationship to it. History of the commons: historically, things that were sacred or highly valuable (land, water, air) could not be owned by individuals; they were to be collectively shared and no one had ownership. However the enclosure movement (14-16c) privatized and enclosed the previously shared resources (fences around land, pollution of air/water nearby). Individuals become property owners as the aristocracy emerges. State begins to protect ownership and private property. Similar logic used in european imperialism: what was previously a shared resource becomes owned. The elites of europe colonized their own people first, then colonized the world. Polanayi argues that land, labour and capital should never be owned/bought/ sold / possessed.
