Science: Another Public Good Turned into a Commodity. By Ana María Cetto
Published in The Journey: https://www.jornada.com.mx/notas/2023/03/21/ciencia-y-tecnologia/otro-bien-publico-convertido-en-mercancia/?from=page&block=ciencia-y-tecnologia&opt=articlelink
Another public good turned into a commodity
Ana María Cetto*
On Monday, March 13, an article appeared in La Jornada with the headline: “A Public Good Turned into a Commodity.” Having not previously read the author's name, and perhaps due to my professional bias, I thought the article referred to scientific knowledge as a public good. But no: Iván Restrepo was referring, quite aptly and timely, to water, a resource that “has been scarce for decades due to misuse, hoarding, and a lack of public policies.”
We are all responsible for the proper or improper use of water; its hoarding is the responsibility of a select few who reap millions in profits by exploiting this precious resource. The lack of public policies allows this situation to worsen to a level that, in this upcoming drought, threatens to become critical for the country, its inhabitants, agriculture, industry, and life itself.
In their analysis of the new characteristics of capitalism, Hardt and Negri show how the commons, “that which belongs to humanity as a whole,” has been enclosed by the market and financial systems. The “commons” include air, water, the fruits of the earth, and all that nature provides; but also the results of social production, such as knowledge, languages, and information. Because they are socially produced, they belong to everyone, and yet, due to their commodification, the vast majority of the population cannot access them (M. Hardt & T. Negri, Commonwealth, 2011, cited by Esther Juliana Vargas in University Autonomy and Cognitive Capitalism, 2021).
The great economist Elinor Ostrom, when discussing the management of the commons, does not differentiate between natural and intangible resources, such as knowledge. In both cases, she argues that the capacity of individuals to manage resources varies depending on the possibilities and the willingness of the community to self-govern, adopting a set of agreements and rules of the game (E. Ostrom, Governing the Commons, 1990).
To what extent have communities that produce scientific knowledge lost the capacity for self-management that once characterized them? The regulation and measurement of knowledge “products” have become remarkably sophisticated in recent decades through homogenizing official policies applied to curricula, evaluation procedures and criteria, project funding, and so on, all within an atmosphere of apparent meritocracy. Simultaneously, the management of scientific knowledge assets has increased at an alarming rate in the hands of a few private science agencies: publishers, databases, and indexes, which intervene in the process of circulation and quality validation with a clear profit motive. The circle is completed when these entities become judges of what is or is not scientifically relevant, and transform their verdicts into public policy by gaining prominence within the institutional sphere of academia.
The figures speak for themselves, and to avoid boring the reader, we will mention only the case of Elsevier, the largest academic publisher, which presents itself as an “information analysis company that helps institutions and professionals make scientific progress.” With more than 46,000 book titles and 2,800 online journals, in addition to the Scopus citation system and other services, Elsevier reported revenues of $3.5 billion and profits of $1.1 billion in 2022, with a profit margin of 37.8 percent (higher than that of Microsoft, Google, and Coca-Cola). To a large extent, this “success” was made possible by academic institutions that channel funds to the company. In a display of financial creativity, Elsevier, like other companies that make up the publishing oligopoly, has committed our universities to cover, in advance through “transformative agreements,” the publication costs of our scientific articles that are accepted for publication in its journals. We are helping to perpetuate the business and ensure its profits.
Can this process of commodification be reversed?
Returning to Elinor Ostrom's arguments, academic communities need to be willing to self-manage; specifically, to regain control over the publication of knowledge products. In this respect, Latin America sets a good example for the world, since most of our scientific journals are published by non-profit academic institutions.
In other parts of the world, there are some encouraging signs. For example, in 2018 all academic institutions in Germany and Sweden canceled their subscriptions with Elsevier after failing to reach a fair agreement. In 2019, the University of California decided that, “to prevent Elsevier from increasing its profits at the institution’s expense,” it would not sign a new contract with the company after 2019.
On the other hand, the current evaluation system, based on metrics produced by private databases that define the “mainstream,” is increasingly being questioned internationally. This system excludes, for commercial reasons, most of the scientific output published in countries like Mexico, “which, incidentally, is available in free and open non-commercial access, as it is a common good.” However, these evaluation practices, criticized as unfair and exclusionary, continue to operate in our institutions, to the detriment of, and behind the backs of, the publications often produced and supported by those same institutions. Unless public policies correct this contradictory practice, our communities of scientific knowledge producers will continue to respond to the dictates of the transnational publishing oligopoly, financed with public funds.
*Senior Researcher at the Institute of Physics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico
