Paper short abstract:

The economic model of "the commons" is examined in scientific and moral terms so as to clarify that frames of reference determine the views we accept and adopt. This is highlighted both in the Digital Age and in an age of wealth and income inequalities.

Paper long abstract:

One feature of the social study of science includes the reconsideration of frames of reference within which any set of knowledge claims are considered scientific. Economic theory in the past century has made claims for scientific status unimagined by the likes of Adam Smith, whose own "Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" (1776) rested on his earlier work on moral sentiments (1759). Contemporary arguments about wealth and income inequalities rest both on economic arguments (bolstered by econometric models) as well as moral ones. My intent here isn't simply to provide yet another Marxist critique of political economy, but rather to suggest that the framing of issues (as Daniel Kahneman reminds us 2011) dramatically contributes to the ways in which we look at them, and eventually the choices we make about them. Therefore, looking at the economic relations among people and nation-states from a moral perspective may undermine the rectitude claimed for economic models. The contested notion and practice of the "commons" (or Public Goods)—as applied in the Digital Age—is a perfect case-study or such "model."