Common space itself is under assault, from noise, development, and commercial importuning. Giant Coke bottles that now stand atop the storied left field wall in Boston's Fenway Park are more than an advertisement. They're a symbol of dominance - a kind that extends to virtually every corner of our society. From patent claims to body parts and the gene pool, to proposals to auction off the sea, there is a pervasive grabbiness that causes the private to devolve into its linguistic root "privation." Not surprisingly, there are increasing efforts to restore balance. The environmental movement is evidence of this, as is the resistance to ads on bases at baseball games, to cellphone noise in public places, to privatizing water, and to the patenting of life. Linux, the computer
operating system developed entirely through a commons on the World Wide
Web, bespeaks a desire to reclaim the free open spaces of the mind,
without either governmental restriction or private claim. Politicians haven't paid much heed. They still talk as though life were a contest between government programs and market forces, with little besides families around and between. But that will change.