Global Commons

Posted by R. Berg on May 26, 2003

In Reply to: Global Village and Global Commons posted by ESC on May 25, 2003

: : : : Anyone know the origin of these expressions, especially the latter?

: : : "Global village"may have come from Marshall McLuhan's writings. I don't know for sure.

: : GLOBAL VILLAGE - "n A term popularized by Marshall McLuhan (1911-80) for the world in the age of high technology and international communications, through which events throughout the world may be experienced simultaneously by everyone, so apparently 'shrinking' world societies to the level of a single village or tribe." From "20th Century Words: The Story of New Words in English Over the Last 100 Years" by John Ayto (Oxford University Press, New York, 1999).

: I'm not finding an origin for the second term.

: Global Commons
: Description natural assets outside national jurisdiction such as the oceans, outer space and the Antarctic.
: unstats.un.org

"The Tragedy of the Commons" was an article by Garrett Hardin. He may have been the first to develop the idea of a global commons, analogous to the village commons of earlier times. Whether he used the phrase "global commons," I don't know.