Click here to access the 55:00m audio interview with Peter Linebaugh, a social historian, at the studios of KPFA in Berkeley, California.
As humanity approaches the limits of resource extraction, as "ownership" of everything is becoming concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, we are witnessing enormous social problems in a variety of forms. This is an issue of privatization that has become a major source of conflict in the world. But, it is not new. It is only now that this issue is creating unprecedented worldwide economic and social crises due to the extreme concentration of ownership under the system of capitalism.
Privatization has created problems for working people over many centuries, and Linebaugh traces the historical record of these conflicts which began with the enclosure of the commons and when craftsmen created machines which came under the "ownership" of the new class of capitalists. The latter used the machines against the interests and welfare of working people--and they fought back. He gives us history lessons that were likely missing in our education.
