Cutting up the Commons: The Violence of Epistemological Error

Abstract

The theory of epistemological error posits that the western premise of radical independence and its rational logic is in conflict with its context. Reductive, instrumental and fragmenting ways of knowing are responsible for the transformation of the life-sustaining ecological and social context into alienated components of the economic system. The green economy project, launched at Rio+20 in 2012, dissects the environment into individual ecosystem services. The notion that carving up the natural commons will preserve natural capital is based on the idea that nature can be divided and submitted to the logic of the economic system. The commodification of the natural commons comes from the same erroneous way of thinking that considers social programs, education and the arts as spheres that can be managed with economic logic. Both the ecological and the social orders are the context of the economic order and must be nurtured to make economic prosperity possible. The cuts have their origins in this deep-seated intellectual error that is now manifested in the crisis-creating neoliberal political philosophy and project.