“But there is much more to the story than that. Indeed, our civilisation does not only suffer from the artificial scarcities and enclosures imposed on the sharing of culture and science, it also suffers from a lack of recognition of the physical commons on which human life depends. As we argued earlier, our societies suffer from being based on “pseudo-abundance”, a false belief that nature can be exploited infinitely without regard for its regenerative capacities. And who are the natural defenders of these ecological and natural commons? The Green Parties, which have also a substantial presence on the European political scene - but especially in Germany.
An explicit commons-orientation of the Green Parties is still weak, and they are still most favouring state-based (such as carbon-taxes) or market-based solutions (cap and trade). Nevertheless, they are the defenders of the integrity of the natural commons, and, under the impulse of think thanks such as the Heinrich Boll Foundation, are moving slowly but surely in the direction of more explicit commons-oriented approaches. Recently, the European Green Federation organised a very successful Commons conference.
This in my view, makes them a natural ally of the Pirates, although the German Greens are at present suffering from a leakage of their younger voters to the Pirate Party. Both parties also share a sociological complementarity. The Greens are the party of the older knowledge workers, relatively well-off professionals, while the Pirates attract the precarious youth, who are now the majority of the new cohort of knowledge workers.
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