Manifesto

An ENS initiative : Interdisciplinary Institute for Resources and Public Goods

After a cen­tury during which two resour­ces – petrol and finance – have been major contri­bu­tors to the radi­cal trans­for­ma­tion of the rela­tion­ships bet­ween man and nature, we now find our­sel­ves confron­ted with the phy­si­cal limits of unpre­ce­den­ted eco­no­mic growth asso­cia­ted with social and envi­ron­men­tal dum­ping. Faced with this mode of linear deve­lop­ment, which pro­vo­kes the rapidly increa­sing scar­city of nume­rous resour­ces, basic reason would require us to ela­bo­rate a more global and col­lec­tive vision of deve­lop­ment using a “non Promethean concep­tion of pro­gress” (Chollet M, Le Monde Diplomatique, Sept. 2009, p. 23). Michel Serres calls for a third revo­lu­tion on Earth and Joseph Stiglitz sets out on a quest for “Another World”.¹⁰ The time has come for us to reconsi­der our rela­tion­ships to the pro­ble­ma­ti­que of resour­ces as a whole as well as our rela­tion­ships to public goods and ser­vi­ces which the market cannot pro­vide : uni­ver­sal access to common goods and fun­da­men­tal rights (edu­ca­tion, health, qua­lity of life, access to know­ledge / culture, soft­ware, social net­works etc).

In this approach, scien­tists, in the broa­dest sense, are well placed to sign­post the way since through the very nature of their pro­fes­sion they tend to think on a long-term basis and cross the bor­ders bet­ween dis­ci­pli­nes. The new ENS de Lyon intends to make a strong com­mit­ment to deve­lo­ping and exploi­ting its inter­dis­ci­pli­nary poten­tial.

This is a pro­po­sal for scho­lars from every sub­ject area to accept the crea­tion of a wor­king group on the vast pro­ble­ma­ti­ques of public goods¹¹and resour­ces in order to adapt their uses to a more human, more sus­tai­na­ble, less ine­ga­li­ta­rian vision of the world which would show grea­ter res­pect for the envi­ron­ment. The wor­king group will par­ti­ci­pate in the crea­tion of the “Interdisciplinary Institute for Resources and Public Goods”. The Institute will be invol­ved in tea­ching and research focu­sing on this pro­ble­ma­ti­que, and its dis­se­mi­na­tion throu­ghout the aca­de­mic world and society.

In concrete terms, although com­pre­hen­ding and opti­mi­zing all resour­ces repre­sent extre­mely urgent tasks, the imple­men­ta­tion of vast bodies of opti­mi­zed resour­ces in order to ensure their ratio­nal and inte­gra­ted mana­ge­ment cons­ti­tu­tes the real socie­tal chal­lenge.

This chal­lenge requi­res a conver­gence of know­ledge and the reci­pro­cal exchange of know-how. The cross-fer­ti­li­za­tion of the concrete and the concep­tual can give rise to new spaces for the rede­fi­ni­tion of the peri­me­ters of public goods, their more glo­bally just attri­bu­tion and the ratio­nal and inte­gra­ted mana­ge­ment of resour­ces in their enti­rety. This is why, in the pre­sent situa­tion, this pro­ble­ma­ti­que should be placed before all the other major issues which it can include and for which it pro­vi­des essen­tial foun­da­tions (bio­di­ver­sity, cli­mate war­ming / dis­tur­bance, energy crisis etc). For some time, concer­ning these issues, people have been tal­king of food sove­rei­gnty, energy or cli­mate secu­rity, etc. as the new poli­ti­cal fron­tiers.

Science and technology – the dark side of the profession

The extra­or­di­nary appro­pria­tion of the planet by humans has been accom­pa­nied by devas­ta­ting extrac­tion affec­ting every resource, resour­ces which are exploi­ted with no consi­de­ra­tion for the envi­ron­men­tal and/or social costs. The para­dox of the cur­rent situa­tion resi­des in the fact that we are capa­ble of unders­tan­ding the bios­phere, its resour­ces and the mecha­nisms which sub­tend it from the mole­cu­lar to the eco­sys­tem levels, but this unders­tan­ding of the subtle and fra­gile dyna­mics and equi­li­bria has no impact on “busi­ness as usual”. It has been said that the market is inca­pa­ble of tel­ling the eco­lo­gi­cal truth¹².

However, eco­logy is the concep­tual frame of refe­rence for many public goods and many resour­ces. But the rela­tion­ship bet­ween the domi­nant policy and public goods is a little strai­ned and the eco­nomy is in conflict with the laws of the bios­phere, its sup­port system and its resource system : the envi­ron­ment and the resour­ces are thought of as being part of the eco­nomy. This results in a pro­cess of cap­tu­ring and mono­po­li­zing resour­ces / wealth. One can dis­cern an impli­cit contra­dic­tion bet­ween our mode of deve­lop­ment and the ethi­cal demands of equa­lity and dignity – a state of affairs that even endan­gers the fun­da­men­tal rights of citi­zens. The most gla­ring ine­qua­li­ties concern the rural world, which concen­tra­tes social injus­tice, eco­no­mic and envi­ron­men­tal ine­qua­li­ties and the conse­quent rapid wea­ke­ning of agri­culture and far­ming com­mu­ni­ties¹³. A real anthro­po­lo­gi­cal crisis (see for exam­ple http://www.droit-ali­ments-terre.eu and the blog http://leblog­de­fran­cois­du­tilleul.blog­spot.com).

Science and tech­no­logy have accom­pa­nied and often ampli­fied this evo­lu­tion. Let’s take a look at life scien­ces, defi­ned broadly, with a long list of ethi­cal and socio-eco­no­mic abuses or crises ; or mathe­ma­tics applied to finance against a back­drop of a jit­tery and impul­sive com­pu­te­ri­zed eco­nomy, or the “mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary” race in mili­tary research ; or the very recent race for the conquest of Arctic riches.

This situa­tion directly affects the very pro­ble­ma­ti­ques of research, their fun­ding and the direc­tion of tech­no­lo­gi­cal deve­lop­ment. It is also clear that society won­ders about the links bet­ween science and scien­tists on the one hand and power, the market, and demo­cracy on the other. As Etienne Klein said (Galilée et les Indiens, Flammarion, 2008), one has to go back in time to the Second World War to see science beco­ming “a sort of global power which is simul­ta­neously tech­ni­cal, indus­trial, eco­no­mic and mili­tary”. Since then, “through the contro­ver­sies which the appli­ca­tions of science give rise to, the ques­tion posed today is nothing less than the poli­ti­cal issue of the pro­ject for society, its ends : socially what do we want to do with the know­ledge and “power-to-do” which science offers us ?

Use them all on prin­ci­ple or in the name of pro­gress, or choose on a case by case basis ?”¹⁴ Indeed, “Europe […] cal­cu­la­tes more than it thinks”. It is obvious that, since the 1960s, the coun­tries com­po­sing the OECD have not built a society of know­ledge, but a “society of tech­no­logy use, a world stan­dar­di­zed by the use­ful­ness of know­ledge”. In other words, science is per­ma­nently cons­truc­ting itself through public mis­sions that evolve, its deon­to­lo­gi­cal rules that fade or yield, and its very ethics, which the inter­play of short-term eco­no­mic and poli­ti­cal inte­rests calls into ques­tion. Science and tech­no­logy have thus let huma­nity slide towards unte­na­ble deve­lop­ments, on seve­ral levels : eco­no­mic, eco­lo­gi­cal, social and cultu­ral.

What can scientists do today ?

“The world looks so dif­fe­rent after lear­ning science”, Bruce Alberts said in his edi­to­rial for the December 2008 issue of Science. At a time when poli­ti­cians agree that the future of Europe is writ­ten in its uni­ver­si­ties (the society of know­ledge), one can ask (again) what pur­pose and which people do the uni­ver­sity, its know­ledge, its phi­lo­so­phy, its public research and its intel­lec­tual pro­perty serve. Which mea­ning and which fina­lity for human exis­tence enligh­ten our science ? Who can still trace the major direc­tions of socie­tal evo­lu­tions in a world in which glo­ba­li­za­tion and pri­va­ti­za­tion have destruc­tu­red poli­tics ?¹⁵ Until satis­fac­tory ans­wers are pro­vi­ded to these ques­tions, the wor­king group consi­ders that the cur­rent course of deve­lop­ment is not the right one. It is thus impor­tant to col­lec­ti­vely par­ti­ci­pate in the emer­gence of a new pro­ject. Achieving this requi­res a cohe­rent and syner­ge­tic rethin­king of its cons­ti­tuent, fun­da­men­tal ele­ments : public goods and resour­ces.

The col­lec­tive eva­lua­tions and recom­men­da­tions of the 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA, http://www.maweb.org/en/index.aspx), the 2007 IPCC expert group on cli­mate change, ocea­no­gra­phers (Monaco Declaration, February 2009), the various stu­dies of bio­di­ver­sity under­ta­ken in 2010, as well as the expert “Pesticide” assess­ment car­ried out by the INRA agri­cultu­ral research ins­ti­tute, have all paved the way for­ward by suc­cess­fully gal­va­ni­zing actors from poli­tics, ins­ti­tu­tions and civil society in favour of action on pro­blems of the utmost urgency for the future. It is impor­tant to main­tain this impe­tus, which is why the wor­king group will inves­ti­gate the fol­lo­wing aspects which must be taken as a whole :

• 1. Thinking and acting globally, in terms of interdisciplinarity, and applying “borderless” ethics to public teaching and research7¹⁶ ;
• 2. Focusing training and defining the thematic priorities of public research in such a way as to place public goods and resources at the heart of public policies. These integrated approaches, a sort of permanent collective assessment, should enable a better understanding of the dynamics and the meaning of development in our societies. This knowledge is essential in order to radically, culturally and politically change the current model of society. This represents a challenge and a mission for the university world.

Thinking and acting globally – exploring interdisciplinarity in order to structure and contextualize knowledge and make rational societal and technological choices

We excel in seg­men­ted thin­king and acting. The move towards a global cohe­rence, within a clear and objec­tive com­pre­hen­sion of the issues, to faci­li­tate col­lec­tive actions, to give focus and mea­ning to social and envi­ron­men­tal deba­tes and conflicts, cannot be envi­sa­ged without a major par­ti­ci­pa­tion of the uni­ver­sity world. Academic free­dom, the inex­tri­ca­ble asso­cia­tion of tea­ching and research, of fun­da­men­tal research and its appli­ca­tions, the jux­ta­po­si­tion of various sub­ject areas and the inclu­sion in both local and global pro­ble­ma­ti­ques, are best expres­sed in a col­lec­tive com­mit­ment of the aca­de­mics and resear­chers them­sel­ves.

This assu­ming of col­lec­tive res­pon­si­bi­lity seeks to encou­rage an impro­ved rela­tion­ship bet­ween demo­cra­tic legi­ti­macy and public scien­ti­fic exper­tise. How ? By using this inter­dis­ci­pli­na­rity as a form of ulti­mate aca­de­mic liberty and as an inter­face bet­ween civil society and the sys­tems of gover­nance. Whatever the sce­na­rio, this approach will have conse­quen­ces for our way of col­lec­ti­vely appre­hen­ding the mea­ning of limits, of adhe­ring to values which struc­ture the col­lec­tive inte­rest, of inci­ting struc­tu­ral and long-term deci­sion-making at the poli­ti­cal level.

Assistance in political decision-making – giving priority to a collective approach in order to appropriate the complete and integrated analysis and assessment of public goods and resources

Science is a common good and a resource, which pos­ses­ses an extra­or­di­nary par­ti­cu­la­rity – it can embrace as its object of study or research every other good and every other resource.

Science and society, science and liberty are fra­gile cou­ples, whe­rein lies the need for uni­ver­si­ties and research struc­tu­res to act as the cross­roads of both civil society and the poli­ti­cal and eco­no­mic world, not only for the dis­se­mi­na­tion of know­ledge, but also for the defi­ni­tion of the objec­ti­ves of public inte­rest : gui­ding socie­tal expec­ta­tions, faci­li­ta­ting the fun­ding of pro­jects emer­ging from civil society, sho­wing that eve­ry­thing is inter­lin­ked and that the cre­di­ble levels of exper­tise are to be found in brin­ging dis­ci­pli­nes toge­ther.

Calls for inter­dis­ci­pli­nary pro­jects are part of the cur­rent situa­tion, but there is no real uni­fying theme put­ting inter­dis­ci­pli­na­rity at the ser­vice of a pro­ject for society. Neither the European Research Council, nor the Comité de pilo­tage de la Stratégie Nationale de Recherche et d’Innovation (research stra­tegy stee­ring com­mit­tee¹⁷, nor the Grenelle de l’envi­ron­ne­ment seem to go far enough in this direc­tion. More recently, a pro­gres­sive awa­ke­ning of awa­re­ness has been heral­ded by such events as : the ini­tia­ti­ves of the INRA agri­cultu­ral research ins­ti­tute (the consul­ta­tion entit­led “Eclairer et anti­ci­per : les fonc­tions d’exper­tise et de pros­pec­tive” (Enlightening and anti­ci­pa­ting : the assess­ment and fore­cast func­tions)) or the report sub­mit­ted to President Sarkozy by the com­mis­sion pre­si­ded by Nobel prize-win­ners Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen (Sept 14, 2009 ; the report recom­men­ded the chan­ging of mea­su­re­ment tools in order to encou­rage a new form of eco­no­mic deve­lop­ment – sus­tai­na­ble, more ega­li­ta­rian, and more res­pect­ful of the envi­ron­ment).

In this context, the first objec­tive of the wor­king group will be the crea­tion of the Interdisciplinary Institute for Resources and Public Goods. The ins­ti­tute will work towards syner­gi­zing pro­mi­nent socie­tal prio­ri­ties, by invol­ving itself in struc­tu­red pro­grams in which the trans­ver­sal pro­ble­ma­ti­que is cons­ti­tu­ted by public goods and the entire range of resour­ces with the aim of inte­gra­ting them into public deve­lop­ment stra­te­gies.

Let’s take resour­ces as an exam­ple. Relatively spe­ci­fic resour­ces repre­sent objects of study for one sub­ject area or ano­ther and the­re­fore cons­ti­tute a common concep­tual deno­mi­na­tor of the first order bet­ween various dis­ci­pli­nes. In the case of natu­ral resour­ces, ana­ly­sis is shared bet­ween geo­gra­phy, geo­logy and bio­logy. This situa­tion has always favou­red a natu­ral dia­lo­gue bet­ween these sub­ject areas and has often faci­li­ta­ted conver­gence or the­ma­tic syner­gies. Amongst others, their inter­dis­ci­pli­nary research could lead to ana­ly­ti­cal tools ena­bling the assess­ment of the state of these resour­ces and the com­pre­hen­ding of their dyna­mic mecha­nisms in order to gauge the socio-eco­no­mic and envi­ron­men­tal via­bi­lity (or vul­ne­ra­bi­lity) of ter­ri­to­ries. This modus ope­randi remains appli­ca­ble to any other asso­cia­tion of dis­ci­pli­nes. On the whole, this approach should faci­li­tate the search for alter­na­tive deve­lop­ment stra­te­gies and be of assis­tance in poli­ti­cal and eco­no­mic deci­sion-making.

From this pers­pec­tive, from the outset, the Interdisciplinary Institute for Resources and Public Goods should inte­grate spe­cia­list skills in phi­lo­so­phy, the his­tory of science and the com­mu­ni­ca­tion scien­ces in order to pro­vide the whole with the neces­sary cri­ti­cal dis­tance and cohe­rence for the research under­ta­ken to be dis­se­mi­na­ted and shared with the gene­ral public.

Associated pedagogical projects

In the appro­pria­tion approach pre­sen­ted above, the trai­ning dimen­sion is an inte­gral part with acute cur­rent rele­vance. What know­ledge should we teach to the pre­sent gene­ra­tions of stu­dents ? Every science is concer­ned, but, at pre­sent, the exam­ple of eco­no­mics is one of the most elo­quent : the issue being the repea­ted fai­lure of eco­no­mics (at least in the fields of macro-eco­no­mics and finan­cial eco­no­mics) as a branch of know­ledge¹⁸.

To faci­li­tate trans­ver­sal move­ments and dia­lo­gues bet­ween dis­ci­pli­nes, there is a call for the gene­ra­li­za­tion of les­sons of the “Science and Society” type as well as cour­ses in each sub­ject area that ana­lyze the concep­tual and metho­do­lo­gi­cal deve­lop­ments which are sup­po­sed to par­ti­ci­pate in the evo­lu­tions of society. An exam­ple to illus­trate this can be seen in the book by François Gros of the Académie, Une bio­lo­gie pour le déve­lop­pe­ment (Ed. EDP Sciences), pre­sen­ted at BioVision 2009, in Lyon. All the above out­li­nes the entire ethi­cal dimen­sion of this approach[[See, for exam­ple, on the envi­ron­men­tal ethics issue, March 2010 : Ethique et envi­ron­ne­ment a l’aube du 21^e siècle (Ethics and envi­ron­ment at the dawn of the 21st cen­tury), http://ver­tigo.revues.org/9810 “In a context marked […] by major dete­rio­ra­tions affec­ting natu­ral milieus […], or by the rare­fac­tion of resour­ces [which are] ine­qui­ta­bly dis­tri­bu­ted in space […], the domain of the defi­ni­tion of choi­ces and the cons­truc­tion of eco­no­mic or poli­ti­cal deci­sions cannot be consi­de­red without reflec­tion on the contours of a new envi­ron­men­tal ethics to confront new envi­ron­men­tal risks and deter­mine the ade­quate res­pon­ses for our­sel­ves and for future gene­ra­tions. This pers­pec­tive implies reflec­tion on the defi­ni­tion of new prin­ci­ples of action likely to modify the beha­viour of actors, by taking into account the tem­po­ra­lity of long-term choi­ces (infra- and inter-gene­ra­tio­nal), the spa­tial scales within which natu­ral phe­no­mena ope­rate, the irre­ver­si­bi­lity asso­cia­ted with the alte­ra­tion of cer­tain envi­ron­men­tal resour­ces or the com­plexity of the inte­rac­tions at stake”. See also : J-F Pierron, Penser le déve­lop­pe­ment dura­ble, 2009, Ellipses.

Students who have thus been pre­pa­red for and made aware of trans­ver­sal issues will be invi­ted to par­ti­ci­pate in the work of the Interdisciplinary Institute for Resources and Public Goods in order to learn how to com­mu­ni­cate and work in inter­dis­ci­pli­nary envi­ron­ments. The IXXI at Lyon (http://www.ixxi.fr) and DYLAN (http://www.dylan-pro­ject.org, an inter­na­tio­nal and inter­dis­ci­pli­nary EU pro­ject), can serve as models.

The cons­truc­tion of com­pe­ten­ces and the concer­ted appro­pria­tion of know­ledge concer­ning public goods and resour­ces by the aca­de­mic world with a view to dis­se­mi­na­ting this know­ledge throu­ghout society via mul­ti­ple chan­nels cons­ti­tute the second objec­tive of the wor­king group.

Conclusion

This public goods and resour­ces approach, which is here pro­po­sed to the aca­de­mia, is a “great chal­lenge”. It calls for a cohe­rent all-embra­cing vision of the pro­duc­tion of inter­sec­ting know­ledge about human socie­ties. The inten­tion is to put science at the ser­vice of society for both the short and long terms while increa­sing awa­re­ness of issues rela­ted to public goods. It is also aimed at faci­li­ta­ting a better defi­ni­tion of the pro­gress we want, through better gui­dance of the fina­li­ties and proper use of tech­no­lo­gies. The opti­mi­za­tion and phased mana­ge­ment of resour­ces cons­ti­tute a trans­ver­sal fun­da­men­tal research pro­ject, one that covers every sub­ject area and the full range of inves­ti­ga­tion from the inter­face of objects to in-depth ana­ly­sis. It is the­re­fore of obvious socie­tal inte­rest even if the defi­ni­tion and peda­gogy of socie­tal expec­ta­tions have yet to be esta­bli­shed.

This pro­ject aims at encou­ra­ging the making of clea­rer choi­ces in the orga­ni­za­tion and fun­ding of science : govern­ments should fix their stra­te­gic prio­ri­ties accor­ding to their poli­cies, indus­tria­lists should finance R&D, and society should attend to the pro­duc­tion of know­ledge, kee­ping it in pers­pec­tive so as to rede­fine the areas of avai­la­ble pos­si­bi­li­ties and to for­mu­late our ques­tions and ideas about the future and the col­lec­tive pro­ject for tomor­row.

Acknowledgements

The points of view expres­sed here owe much to the contri­bu­tions and/or encou­ra­ge­ments of Paul Arnould, Olivier Faron, Christian Henriot, Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz, Yves-François Le Lay, Marie-Claude Maurel, Michel Morvan, Violette Rey and Michel Serres. But also to dis­cus­sions with Etienne Klein and Guillaume Lecointre. I would par­ti­cu­larly like to thank the mem­bers of the young peda­go­gi­cal team of the Biodiversity and Biological Resources module at ENS who bra­vely under­took the ana­ly­sis-inven­tory of natu­ral resour­ces : Florian Douam, Morgane Ollivier, Emmanuel Pasco and Jonathan Schnabel. Last but not least, I would like to thank Nigel Briggs for the English ver­sion of this text.

Definitions

“In eco­no­mics, a public good is a good that is non-rival and non-exclu­da­ble. Non-rivalry means that consump­tion of the good by one indi­vi­dual does not reduce avai­la­bi­lity of the good for consump­tion by others ; and non-exclu­da­bi­lity that no one can be effec­ti­vely exclu­ded from using the good” (http://en.wiki­pe­dia.org/wiki/Public_good).

The control of epi­de­mics and natio­nal defence are arche­ty­pal public goods.

The notion of the public good is one of four cate­go­ries ari­sing from a defi­ni­tion in terms of rivalry and exclu­da­bi­lity. The three other cate­go­ries are : club goods (non-rival­rous, exclu­da­ble) ; common goods (see below) or impure public goods (rival­rous, non-exclu­da­ble) ; and pri­vate goods (rival­rous, exclu­da­ble).

In a finite and tech­ni­cally evol­ving world these two condi­tions (rivalry and exclu­da­bilty) are rarely abso­lute. Each good is a socio-his­to­ri­cal and eco­no­mic cons­truct which may be situa­ted within a conti­nuum ran­ging from the purely pri­vate to the pure global public good.

According to the evo­lu­tion of condi­tions, a same good may be a pure public good (well above thre­sholds) or an impure public good (a thre­shold has been cros­sed mar­king the appea­rance of rivalry or pos­si­bly exclu­da­bi­lity) : as a freely acces­si­ble public good may be sub­ject to was­tage, the spon­ta­neous evo­lu­tion of the situa­tion can easily approach the thre­shold beyond which the public good beco­mes a common good with its dif­fe­rent atten­dant issues of mana­ge­ment.

The term global public good is also used to desi­gnate public goods which are avai­la­ble over very large areas (for exam­ple : the qua­lity of the air, bio­di­ver­sity, the global cli­mate situa­tion…), although this notion is sub­ject to viru­lent cri­ti­cism and is far from stable and uni­fied. The idea of global public goods was inven­ted by the UNDP (United Nations Development Program) in 1999. It is an eco­lo­gi­cal and huma­nis­tic vision based on the fact that cur­rent consump­tion of natu­ral resour­ces does not enable sus­tai­na­ble deve­lop­ment and poses the ques­tion of the sur­vi­val of future gene­ra­tions.

Ref. L’avan­cée des biens publics - Politique de l’inté­rêt géné­ral et mon­dia­li­sa­tion, Bernard Gazier, Collectif, 2006 Albin Michel Collection : biblio­the­que d’économie

Common goods. Everything which is sub­ject to shared, even free use. The tra­gedy of common goods is a class of eco­no­mic phe­no­me­non which des­cri­bes the com­pe­ti­tion for access to a limi­ted resource lea­ding to a conflict bet­ween pri­vate inte­rest and the common good. The expres­sion became popu­lar through an arti­cle writ­ten by Garrett Hardin publi­shed in Science in 1968, « The Tragedy of the Commons ». The ori­gi­nal text des­cri­bes how free access to a limi­ted resource in high demand ine­vi­ta­bly leads to its over-exploi­ta­tion and final disap­pea­rance (see http://en.wiki­pe­dia.org/wiki/Traged...). Finding a solu­tion to the tra­gedy of the com­mons cons­ti­tu­tes one of the recur­ring pro­blems of poli­ti­cal phi­lo­so­phy but the awar­ding of the 2009 Nobel Prize for eco­no­mics to Elinor Ostrom (with her Understanding Knowledge as a Commons) poses the ques­tion of the com­mons in terms of col­lec­tive mea­ning, places of expres­sion and nego­tia­tion of society.

The com­mons. Subject to common use. The tra­gedy of the com­mons is a meta­phor for the public goods pro­blem that it is hard to coor­di­nate and pay for public goods (http://eco­no­mics.about.com/od/econo...). The Drama of the Commons, 2002, National Research Council USA, (http://search.nap.edu/nap-cgi/de.cg...).

Common pool resour­ces (CPR) are cha­rac­te­ri­sed by the dif­fi­culty of exclu­ding actors from using them and the fact that the use by one indi­vi­dual or group means that less is avai­la­ble for use by others. (The latter point dis­tin­gui­shes CPR from pure public goods which exhi­bit both non exclu­da­bi­lity and non rivalry in consump­tion). CPRs include some fishe­ries, irri­ga­tion sys­tems and gra­zing areas.

Resources. These are natu­ral, human, eco­no­mic and ins­ti­tu­tio­nal resour­ces and know­ledge. These contents are very varied, cove­ring the range from very mate­rial resour­ces such as the pro­duc­tion of agro-eco­sys­tems, energy, bio­di­ver­sity, popu­la­tion dis­per­sal pat­terns… to the most varied human resour­ces, to the most imma­te­rial such as ins­ti­tu­tio­nal resour­ces. In 1910, T. Roosevelt said “The nation beha­ves well if it treats the natu­ral resour­ces as assets which it must turn over to the next gene­ra­tion increa­sed, and not impai­red, in value” (http://www.todayinsci.com/R/Rooseve...).

In 1992, the resource ques­tion was clearly posed at the Rio summit. Today it is sys­te­ma­ti­cally evoked in every sphere of acti­vity and deci­sion-making.

In part, the eco­nomy can be defi­ned as the trans­for­ma­tion of resour­ces with the assis­tance of energy (Enjeux, Les Echos, Nov 2009, p. 40).

It should also be noted that in the phi­lo­so­phy of Akeel Bilgrami (Heyman Center for the Humanities, Columbia University) the swing from the concept of “nature” to “natu­ral resour­ces” repre­sents a cen­tral issue.