The Argument For the Commons

Okay, so I generally try to make the other person's argument strong before trashing it.

The case for commercializing public space is that companies will take better care of the space. No, I'm not joking. I'll give an example. The idea is that the public park across from my house will be better maintained if a company takes over. So, if it goes from being High Park to being Motorola Park (for example), the company will maintain the space so as to avoid tarnishing their good name. They will hire people to pick up broken bottles and used condoms and so forth and make it the sort of place that people can bring their families. Why? Because they won't want to drive off their customers, and they want people to associate "Motorola" with natural beauty. The "public" can't be held accountable, and so a few bad apples will still trash the park, if it is left to the people. Also, isn't it about time that companies gave back to the environment? Sure, maybe they'll add a few Motorola billboards to the park, but they'll keep it much cleaner than government agents could. After all, didn't that article in the 1968 issue of Science say as much?

Why I disagree:
1) Are we so nuts that we would trust our parks, wildlife and public spaces to corporations? Garret Hardin was writing in the late 60s. Since then, we've had any number of environmental tragedies. It wasn't the "public" that gave us the Bhopal accident , Dorana Pennsylvania, Rocky Flats, The Valdez spill, Love Canal, etc. etc. etc. The corporations have trashed the environment. Trusting it to their stewardship would be like setting up a loved one on a blind date with O.J. Simpson.

2) It's dreadful for our civil rights. When a space becomes private and commercial, the owners can install their own security. This is why you can't read your poetry in a mall. Most malls have rules against what they call "non-commercial speech". No, I'm not kidding. When you go to one of the handful of outdoor malls in the US, it's just like walking down a sidewalk of a major city- except you can't talk to the other customers about anything except where certain stores are. So, making public spaces into commercial spaces means that free speech is no longer allowed in those spaces. This is not paranoid delusion- it's the actual rule in that public square I mentioned in the previous post.

3) We still get taxed! When Toronto decided to sell its trash dumpsters off to private companies who plan to add eight-foot billboards to them, (not kidding here either) a bright citizen asked, "If the city can't afford to buy their own garbage cans, then why am I paying taxes?" If public services are commercialized, all of our taxes literally disappear because we have no idea what they could be going to. Here, taxes rates have not declined as spaces became commercial. Subway fares increased a few months after the city started renting entire stations out to advertisers. Wouldn't they drop?

4) People are opposed to the idea! In public opinion polls, the public is overwhelmingly opposed to the creeping commercialization of our entire lives. When issues like dumpster-billboards come to a vote, the public overwhelmingly votes against them. We're sick of fucking advertisements. In a big way. Yet, our elected officials do not care what we think. They care about corporations.

5) Spaces have an intrinsic value. Parks encourage civic involvement and exercise. Not trashing the environment is actually worthwhile. But, commercializing public spaces argues that spaces only have value if they can generate revenue. Do we have value outside of our revenue generation? Does the government have any use for Quakers and Buddhists that don't shop very much?