SUSTAINABILITY AND ENCLOSURE: LAND, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND BIOTECHNOLOGY

Carlisle Runge

No 14464, Working Papers from University of Minnesota, Center for International Food and Agricultural Policy

Abstract: The tension between enterprise as a means and sustainability as an end is directly related to the tension between rights to exclude others from a stream of private benefits and rights to be included in streams of environmental improvements. Resolving this tension is necessary if we are to square the circle between sustainability and enterprise. I begin for perspective with a brief review of the enclosure of land, and the widely cited notion of the Tragedy of the Commons. I then consider the modern version of the debate, surrounding informatics and, more specifically, intellectual property in plant genomics. The last part of the discussion focuses on a synthesis in which the two faces of enclosure - to be excluded and to be included - are brought together with democratic theory to give "sustainable enterprise" coherence and meaning.

Keywords: Research; and; Development/Tech; Change/Emerging; Technologies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33
Date: 2004
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:umciwp:14464

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.14464

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