The Persistent Idea of the Commons

The Persistent Idea of the Commons

Review of Peter Linebaugh’s Magna Carta Manifesto

By Andy Lee Roth, Associate Director of Project Censored






Peter Linebaugh’s Magna Carta Manifesto (University of California Press, 2008) demonstrates the power of long memory.  His aim in providing a historically-grounded interpretation of Magna Carta is to “put the commons back on the agenda” (p. 20).   Contemporary debate on economics and politics tends to treat the commons as an anachronism:  ”[M]ost people are unfamiliar with Magna Carta,” in part because, in contemporary context, it “shows up as a whitewash …extolling individualism, private property, laissez-faire and English civilization” (216).   It was not always so.

Linebaugh reminds us that Magna Carta was one of two documents constituting the Great Charters of Liberties of England.  All but unknown today, the Charter of the Forest established commoning. Whereas Magna Carta provides the basis for due process, trial by jury, and prohibition of torture, for example; the Charter of the Forest established the commons and defined limits on privatization. The  commons is “the theory that vests all property in the community and organizes labor for the common benefit of all” (p. 6).  Together, then, the Great Charters “stipulated restraints upon the royal realm” and “provided subsistence in the common realm” (242).  The two charters cooperate in that  ”political and legal rights can only exist on an economic foundation” (6).  Those familiar with Linebaugh’s prior books will appreciate here how he carries forward the tradition of his teacher, historian E. P. Thompson.

But The Magna Carta Manifesto is no ivory tower exercise.  Linebaugh stresses the liberatory significance of Magna Carta throughout its history.   Thus, he devotes a chapter to the essential role of Magna Carta in the black freedom struggle; across a number of chapters, he shows how enclosure of the commons has contributed to what we understand, today, as the feminization of poverty; and, after 9/11, Linebaugh shows how the U.S. “war on terror” makes even more relevant the Great Charter’s restraints on state power, including of course Habeas corpus.

Fascinating details and original insights enliven The Magna Carta Manifesto.   For example, in a chapter titled “Icon and Idol,” Linebaugh interprets public art depicting Magna Carta, including the architecture of the U.S. Supreme Court and a rotunda at Runnymede (where King John signed the Charter).  An Italian immigrant, Giuseppe Piccirilli, and his sons created the marble frieze of King John in the Supreme Court.  Their Bronx studio was a center of immigrant culture, a gathering place of artists, patrons, educators, and anarchists.  The rotunda at Runnymede, established in 1957 by the American Bar Association, includes the inscription “To commemorate Magna Carta symbol of freedom under law.”  As Linebaugh reveals, this is one of the distortions of Magna Carta, whose original intent was to restrain the King under law (pp. 212-3).

One of Linebaugh’s keenest observations occurs in passing, when he notes that, under constitutional systems, the jury is “the only place where popular sovereignty exists without the intermediation of representatives” (p. 260).  His critical assessment of Tom Paine, and his tract “Common Sense,” will be fresh and bracing for many readers who think of the Declaration of Independence as our nation’s Magna Carta.  (Tom Paine “wrested common sense from the commoners,” Linebaugh argues, and the Declaration justifies powers of the state, whereas Magna Carta curtailed the powers of the sovereign.)

As Linebaugh acknowledges, “The commons is a touchy subject in America” (p. 219), challenging as it does the “dominant institutions” of private property, commerce, and capitalism.  But, in identifying the principles of anti-enclosure, reparations, subsistence, neighborhood, and travel (e.g., p. 245) and reminding us of their rich history, Linebaugh “charts a path” that gives “hope for a better future” (in the apt words of Michael Ratner, past-president of the Center for Constitutional Rights).

History of the Commons

 

 

History of the Commons

 

The concept of "the commons" dates back to Roman law. According to the Romans, property or "things" (objects which may become an active subject of right) were divided by distinct definition. Res privatae was considered the "things" that individuals could own. In modern day lingo, this would include a new car, computer, or an appliance. Res publicae was defined as those things built by municipalities, governing bodies, the State or federal government. Examples include public schools, roads, sidewalks, and libraries.

Res communes literally means "things common to all" and comprises those things extra patrimoiium (incapable of being possessed) and thus available to all organisms. These resources by their dynamic nature include water, air, and biological and genetic diversity.

Increasingly, economic developments by industries for short-term gain have led to advances that jeopardize species diversity, access to clean water, and human health. For example, our domesticated seed supply is being intensively privatized by a handful of corporations thus constricting genetic and biological diversity. Our waters are being impacted by toxic and sedimentary pollution thus affecting the health and recovery of our fisheries, their habitat, and human health. Industries are knowingly polluting the air we breathe with toxic pollutants and particulate matter smothering our own genetic and biological makeup's ability to recover. Instead of democratically managing our common heritage, we are provided mutilated resources that have been heavily influenced by Machiavellian covenants and policies.

Our environment, its water, air, and biodiversity, is our common heritage. It is ours to manage and conserve. The health of the commons has been gravely compromised and it is up to us to regain our common interests.

It was a community which resulted from the fact that those things which were common to all belonged no more to one than to the others, and hence no one could prevent another from taking of these common things that portion which he judged necessary in order to subserve his wants from. Geer v. Connecticut, 161 U.S. 519 (1896)

Reclaiming and Redefining America's Hopes

Reclaiming and Redefining America's Hopes The commons worldview can helps us accomplish great things together--really - See more at: http://onthecommons.org/magazine/reclaiming-and-redefining-americas-hopes#sthash.lJhCyDoJ.dpuf

Reclaiming and Redefining America's Hopes

The commons worldview can helps us accomplish great things together--really

by Jay Walljasper

Commons Strategies, Politics and Government

 

 

 The commons is an old value that’s resurfacing as a fresh approach to twenty-first-century crises such as escalating economic inequality, looming ecological disruption and worsening social alienation.

In essence, the commons means everything that belongs to all of us, and the many ways we work together to use these assets to build a better society. This encompasses fresh air and clean water, public spaces and public services, the Internet and the airwaves, our legal system, scientific knowledge, biodiversity, language, artistic traditions, fashion styles, cuisines and much more. Taken together, it represents a vast inheritance bequeathed equally to every human—and one that, if used wisely, will provide for future generations.

Tragically, this wealth is being stolen in the name of economic efficiency and global competitiveness. As the disparity between the world’s richest individuals and everyone else grows, a massive takeover of the commons is occurring. Through privatization schemes, land grabs, excessive copyright and patenting claims, no-new-taxes policies, neocolonial globalization and the gutting of government services, we are losing what is rightfully ours. These radical policies inflict economic pain but also diminish the natural world, our sense of community and the ability to participate in decisions affecting our future.

Of course, this is nothing new. It has been happening ever since feudal lords in Europe enclosed forests and grazing lands (the original meaning of the word “commons”), which helped set the stage for the brutality of the Industrial Revolution and colonial invasions. The assault on the commons has intensified over the past thirty years, however, because of the rise of market ideology as the overpowering force in international politics.

But all is not lost. We still depend on the commons all day long, from the tap water we use to brush our teeth in the morning to the fairy tales we tell our kids at bedtime. We have no choice but to redouble efforts to save the commons in its many forms, from essential public services in our communities to a spirit of cooperation in our everyday lives. As awareness of what belongs to all of us grows among progressives, the commons is gradually emerging as both a critique and a strategy to challenge the dominance of market-based values at every level of our society.

The work of the commons points us toward a brighter future where the out-of-control individualism of modern society is balanced with a new appreciation of what we can accomplish together—a welcome shift from “me” to “we.” This can range from community gardens and occupy encampments at the grassroots level to economic justice and environmental campaigns in the political world. (Of course, most people doing commons work don’t call it that, and many may not be familiar with the term at all; for them it’s simply the “common good.”)

Although a new concept to us, the commons stands as a central organizing principle of indigenous societies, peasant communities and many advanced industrial nations. Social democracy, as practiced in Europe and other places, embodies a basic commons principle—that no one should be denied basic needs like food, housing, healthcare, daycare, education, transportation, job training, paid vacation, a comfortable old age and a measure of dignity in their lives.

Even American society has been grounded in the commons idea since the beginning. Nature’s gifts are “the common property of the human race,” declared Thomas Paine. The Land Ordinance of 1785, drafted by a committee of the Continental Congress that included Thomas Jefferson, established a cooperative model for settlement of the West (and removal of Indian nations) by setting aside one square-mile section of every township as common property to be used to support a public school.

New Deal legislation, crowned by the Social Security Act and the GI Bill, drew upon a sense of the commons—the belief that we’re all in this together—to elevate millions of families into the middle class. In many cases, however, these benefits were denied to African-Americans, Latinos and American Indians, a situation Ira Katznelson chronicles in his book When Affirmative Action Was White. Repairing longstanding racial and economic injustice remains one of the central themes of commons activism today.

Although rarely articulated as a distinct philosophy, the ideals of the commons provided inspiration for key advancements throughout our history—ranging from public health improvements and civic reforms of the Progressive era to the gains made for working families by labor unions to the accomplishments of social movements since the 1960s. All these success stories refute frequent claims that individualism alone accounts for America’s progress.

For progressives today, a new focus on what we share will provide a boost in forging strategies and policies that win the hearts of Americans. Until the Great Recession hit in 2008, increasing numbers of people bought into the market mantra that you cannot depend on anything you don’t own. Although this made little sense to the majority of Americans left behind by the economy, especially those who never shared in the prosperity, many middle-class people came to accept that logic. Who cares that the recreation center at the park is padlocked, when you can buy into a private health club?

Then, suddenly, all that we share—parks, libraries, transit, public schools, a social safety net, a sense of community cooperation—has become increasingly important. Yet, ironically, at a time when demand for public and civic services is rising, sharp reductions in tax revenues and charitable giving (along with politicians’ refusal to raise taxes) mean that these services are being cut back or eliminated.

More Americans understand it’s crazy that library hours are being slashed when increasing numbers of people can’t afford Internet service, magazine subscriptions or new books. It’s ridiculous that transit fares are rising and routes are being cut when it’s harder than ever for some people to afford cars or gas, and when it’s clear that auto emissions are affecting the world’s climate. It’s criminal that programs helping the poor, both in government and in civil society, are struggling to find money when so many more people now depend on them.

In On the Commons’ book, All That We Share: A Field Guide to the Commons:http://www.onthecommons.org/all-that-we-share, I call this situation “a tragedy of the commons.” In fact, that’s the opposite of how this phrase is generally understood—that the commons itself is the tragedy, not its destruction. This negative view dates to 1968, when wildlife biologist Garrett Hardin published a hugely influential essay, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” in which he speculated that collective ownership of resources was a major factor in environmental destruction. Describing a hypothetical common pasture, he argued that because no one owns it outright, no one has an incentive to take care of it. This means that everyone will graze as many cattle as possible there until the land turns barren.

Free-market advocates seized on Hardin’s parable as proof that any system other than rigid private property leads to ruin. It took decades of work by Indiana University political scientist Elinor Ostrom—co-winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Economics, the first woman so honored—to debunk the belief that the commons inevitably leads to tragedy. Ostrom’s fieldwork in Kenya, Switzerland, Guatemala, Nepal, Turkey and Los Angeles shows that people in real communities generally create rules and systems to protect the resources they share. These can be enforced by government regulation, local customs or other means. Other examples include the rules New England lobster fleets developed through the years to prevent overfishing and the acequia irrigation systems in arid New Mexico, which have been successfully governed by community groups as long as four centuries.

The tragedy of the commons, in Hardin’s sense of the phrase, does indeed exist, as seen in the collapse of global fish stocks and continuing greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. But Ostrom’s research shows that the lack of commons management, not the commons itself, is to blame.

The recognition of Ostrom’s work, along with a culture of online sharing fostered by the Internet, is sparking the emergence of a new movement championing the commons—both as a precious inheritance we must save and as a way of looking at the world. It’s actually a movement of movements, as activists concerned about seemingly distinct issues as indigenous rights, fair access to the Internet, economic inequity, the environment or the growing lack of democratic participation realize what they have in common. There’s real potential for “more than the sum of the parts” results here. The surprising rise of Europe’s “pirate” parties (which recently won seats in Berlin’s state legislature), sparked by opposition to restrictive copyrights and patent laws, points to the political possibilities of the commons.

The number of people who identify as “commoners” is still small; yet the commons movement already has a global reach, with citizens from thirty-four nations attending the first International Conference on the Commons, in Berlin last November, including a government minister and a former president of the national assembly from Ecuador. The World Social Forum issued a call for “all citizens of the world to deepen the notion of the commons.” So far the ideals of the commons seem to appeal most to people in developing nations and social democracies, where individualism and the market mentality are not so ingrained as in the United States.

But the financial implosion of 2008 and its still-reverberating side effects could be the catalyst for Americans to rethink some of our assumptions about what matters most in society. In the immediate aftermath of the crash, many sought comfort in the nostrums of the Tea Party. But as it becomes clear that high unemployment, economic uncertainty and escalating wealth disparities are here to stay under current policies, the values of the commons is resonating with more Americans. The emergence of this progressive worldview could help redefine the American Dream and our political priorities.

Tags

the commons, on the commons, all that we share

Posted November 16, 2011

The commons is an old value that’s resurfacing as a fresh approach to twenty-first-century crises such as escalating economic inequality, looming ecological disruption and worsening social alienation.
In essence, the commons means everything that belongs to all of us, and the many ways we work together to use these assets to build a better society. This encompasses fresh air and clean water, public spaces and public services, the Internet and the airwaves, our legal system, scientific knowledge, biodiversity, language, artistic traditions, fashion styles, cuisines and much more. Taken together, it represents a vast inheritance bequeathed equally to every human—and one that, if used wisely, will provide for future generations.
Tragically, this wealth is being stolen in the name of economic efficiency and global competitiveness. As the disparity between the world’s richest individuals and everyone else grows, a massive takeover of the commons is occurring. Through privatization schemes, land grabs, excessive copyright and patenting claims, no-new-taxes policies, neocolonial globalization and the gutting of government services, we are losing what is rightfully ours. These radical policies inflict economic pain but also diminish the natural world, our sense of community and the ability to participate in decisions affecting our future.
Of course, this is nothing new. It has been happening ever since feudal lords in Europe enclosed forests and grazing lands (the original meaning of the word “commons”), which helped set the stage for the brutality of the Industrial Revolution and colonial invasions. The assault on the commons has intensified over the past thirty years, however, because of the rise of market ideology as the overpowering force in international politics.
But all is not lost. We still depend on the commons all day long, from the tap water we use to brush our teeth in the morning to the fairy tales we tell our kids at bedtime. We have no choice but to redouble efforts to save the commons in its many forms, from essential public services in our communities to a spirit of cooperation in our everyday lives. As awareness of what belongs to all of us grows among progressives, the commons is gradually emerging as both a critique and a strategy to challenge the dominance of market-based values at every level of our society.
The work of the commons points us toward a brighter future where the out-of-control individualism of modern society is balanced with a new appreciation of what we can accomplish together—a welcome shift from “me” to “we.” This can range from community gardens and occupy encampments at the grassroots level to economic justice and environmental campaigns in the political world. (Of course, most people doing commons work don’t call it that, and many may not be familiar with the term at all; for them it’s simply the “common good.”)
Although a new concept to us, the commons stands as a central organizing principle of indigenous societies, peasant communities and many advanced industrial nations. Social democracy, as practiced in Europe and other places, embodies a basic commons principle—that no one should be denied basic needs like food, housing, healthcare, daycare, education, transportation, job training, paid vacation, a comfortable old age and a measure of dignity in their lives.
Even American society has been grounded in the commons idea since the beginning. Nature’s gifts are “the common property of the human race,” declared Thomas Paine. The Land Ordinance of 1785, drafted by a committee of the Continental Congress that included Thomas Jefferson, established a cooperative model for settlement of the West (and removal of Indian nations) by setting aside one square-mile section of every township as common property to be used to support a public school.
New Deal legislation, crowned by the Social Security Act and the GI Bill, drew upon a sense of the commons—the belief that we’re all in this together—to elevate millions of families into the middle class. In many cases, however, these benefits were denied to African-Americans, Latinos and American Indians, a situation Ira Katznelson chronicles in his book When Affirmative Action Was White. Repairing longstanding racial and economic injustice remains one of the central themes of commons activism today.
Although rarely articulated as a distinct philosophy, the ideals of the commons provided inspiration for key advancements throughout our history—ranging from public health improvements and civic reforms of the Progressive era to the gains made for working families by labor unions to the accomplishments of social movements since the 1960s. All these success stories refute frequent claims that individualism alone accounts for America’s progress.
For progressives today, a new focus on what we share will provide a boost in forging strategies and policies that win the hearts of Americans. Until the Great Recession hit in 2008, increasing numbers of people bought into the market mantra that you cannot depend on anything you don’t own. Although this made little sense to the majority of Americans left behind by the economy, especially those who never shared in the prosperity, many middle-class people came to accept that logic. Who cares that the recreation center at the park is padlocked, when you can buy into a private health club?
Then, suddenly, all that we share—parks, libraries, transit, public schools, a social safety net, a sense of community cooperation—has become increasingly important. Yet, ironically, at a time when demand for public and civic services is rising, sharp reductions in tax revenues and charitable giving (along with politicians’ refusal to raise taxes) mean that these services are being cut back or eliminated.
More Americans understand it’s crazy that library hours are being slashed when increasing numbers of people can’t afford Internet service, magazine subscriptions or new books. It’s ridiculous that transit fares are rising and routes are being cut when it’s harder than ever for some people to afford cars or gas, and when it’s clear that auto emissions are affecting the world’s climate. It’s criminal that programs helping the poor, both in government and in civil society, are struggling to find money when so many more people now depend on them.
In On the Commons’ book, All That We Share: A Field Guide to the Commons:http://www.onthecommons.org/all-that-we-share, I call this situation “a tragedy of the commons.” In fact, that’s the opposite of how this phrase is generally understood—that the commons itself is the tragedy, not its destruction. This negative view dates to 1968, when wildlife biologist Garrett Hardin published a hugely influential essay, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” in which he speculated that collective ownership of resources was a major factor in environmental destruction. Describing a hypothetical common pasture, he argued that because no one owns it outright, no one has an incentive to take care of it. This means that everyone will graze as many cattle as possible there until the land turns barren.
Free-market advocates seized on Hardin’s parable as proof that any system other than rigid private property leads to ruin. It took decades of work by Indiana University political scientist Elinor Ostrom—co-winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Economics, the first woman so honored—to debunk the belief that the commons inevitably leads to tragedy. Ostrom’s fieldwork in Kenya, Switzerland, Guatemala, Nepal, Turkey and Los Angeles shows that people in real communities generally create rules and systems to protect the resources they share. These can be enforced by government regulation, local customs or other means. Other examples include the rules New England lobster fleets developed through the years to prevent overfishing and the acequia irrigation systems in arid New Mexico, which have been successfully governed by community groups as long as four centuries.
The tragedy of the commons, in Hardin’s sense of the phrase, does indeed exist, as seen in the collapse of global fish stocks and continuing greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. But Ostrom’s research shows that the lack of commons management, not the commons itself, is to blame.
The recognition of Ostrom’s work, along with a culture of online sharing fostered by the Internet, is sparking the emergence of a new movement championing the commons—both as a precious inheritance we must save and as a way of looking at the world. It’s actually a movement of movements, as activists concerned about seemingly distinct issues as indigenous rights, fair access to the Internet, economic inequity, the environment or the growing lack of democratic participation realize what they have in common. There’s real potential for “more than the sum of the parts” results here. The surprising rise of Europe’s “pirate” parties (which recently won seats in Berlin’s state legislature), sparked by opposition to restrictive copyrights and patent laws, points to the political possibilities of the commons.
The number of people who identify as “commoners” is still small; yet the commons movement already has a global reach, with citizens from thirty-four nations attending the first International Conference on the Commons, in Berlin last November, including a government minister and a former president of the national assembly from Ecuador. The World Social Forum issued a call for “all citizens of the world to deepen the notion of the commons.” So far the ideals of the commons seem to appeal most to people in developing nations and social democracies, where individualism and the market mentality are not so ingrained as in the United States.
But the financial implosion of 2008 and its still-reverberating side effects could be the catalyst for Americans to rethink some of our assumptions about what matters most in society. In the immediate aftermath of the crash, many sought comfort in the nostrums of the Tea Party. But as it becomes clear that high unemployment, economic uncertainty and escalating wealth disparities are here to stay under current policies, the values of the commons is resonating with more Americans. The emergence of this progressive worldview could help redefine the American Dream and our political priorities.

Tags

the commons, on the commons, all that we share

Posted November 16, 2011

- See more at: http://onthecommons.org/magazine/reclaiming-and-redefining-americas-hopes#sthash.lJhCyDoJ.dpuf

 

All That We Share

Reclaiming and Redefining America's Hopes

The commons worldview can helps us accomplish great things together--really

| by Jay Walljasper

- See more at: http://onthecommons.org/magazine/reclaiming-and-redefining-americas-hopes#sthash.lJhCyDoJ.dpuf

Reclaiming and Redefining America's Hopes

The commons worldview can helps us accomplish great things together--really

| by Jay Walljasper

- See more at: http://onthecommons.org/magazine/reclaiming-and-redefining-americas-hopes#sthash.lJhCyDoJ.dpuf

All That We Share

Welcome to a new kind of movement—one that reshapes how we think about ownership and cooperation.

Document Actions

by Jay Walljasper

 

 

posted Dec 20, 2010

Welcome to the commons. The term may be unfamiliar, but the idea has been around for centuries. The commons is a new use of an old word, meaning “what we share”—and it offers fresh hope for a saner, safer, more enjoyable future. The commons refers to a wealth of valuable assets that belong to everyone. These range from clean air to wildlife preserves; from the judicial system to the Internet. Some are bestowed to us by nature; others are the product of cooperative human creativity. Certain elements of the commons are entirely new—think of Wikipedia. Others are centuries old—like colorful words and phrases from all the world’s languages. Anyone can use the commons, so long as there is enough left for everyone else. This is why finite commons, such as natural resources, must be sustainably and equitably managed. But many other forms of the commons can be freely tapped. Today’s hip-hop and rock stars, for instance, “appropriate” (quote) the work of soul singers, jazz swingers, blues wailers, gospel shouters, hillbilly pickers, and balladeers going back a long time—and we are all richer for it. That’s the greatest strength of the commons. It’s an inheritance shared by all humans, which increases in value as people draw upon its riches.

That’s the greatest strength of the commons. It’s an inheritance shared by all humans, which increases in value as people draw upon its riches.

At least that’s how the commons has worked throughout history, fostering democratic, cultural, technological, medical, economic, and humanitarian advances. But this natural cycle of sharing is now under assault. As the market economy becomes the yardstick for measuring the worth of everything, more people are grabbing portions of the commons as their private property. Many essential elements of society—from ecosystems to scientific knowledge to public services—are slipping through our hands and into the pockets of the rich and powerful.

The Wealth We Lost

 

One example of what we’re losing comes right out of today’s headlines about spiraling health care costs. The creation of many widely prescribed drugs, which millions of people depend upon, was funded in large part by government grants. But the exclusive right to sell pharmaceuticals developed with public money was handed over to drug companies with almost nothing asked in return. That means we pay exorbitant prices for medicine developed with our tax dollars, and many poor people are denied access to treatments that might save their lives.

Another even more absurd example concerns a subject that you would think stirs no controversy—yoga. Through centuries of evolution as a spiritual practice, any new yoga poses or techniques were automatically incorporated into the tradition for everyone to use. But beginning in 1978 an Indian named Bikram Choudhury, now based in Beverly Hills, copyrighted certain long-used hatha yoga poses and sequences as his own invention, Bikram Yoga, and he now threatens other yoga studios teaching these techniques with lawsuits.

The good news is that people all around us are beginning to take back the commons.

Neighbors rising up to keep their library open, improve their park, or find new funding for public schools. Greens fighting the draining of wetlands and the dumping of toxic waste in inner-city neighborhoods. Digital activists providing access to the Internet in poor communities and challenging corporate plans to limit access to information. Indigenous people instilling their children with a sense of tradition and hope. Young social entrepreneurs and software engineers seeking new mechanisms for people to share ideas.

The sky, the earth, parklands, scientific knowledge, and even the Internet belong to all of us.

 

Not all of these people think of themselves as commons activists. Some may not even be familiar with the term. Vel Wiley, the longtime director of Milwaukee’s public access TV channels, stood up at a commons event and declared, “When I was asked to be a part of this conference, I thought the commons was for people like Greenpeace, an environmental cause. But I understand now that I have been advocating for the commons over the last twenty years. I realize we’re not just a small group advocating that the people have a voice in the broadcasting media. We’re all a part of something so much bigger, and that helps us to keep going.”

51 Ways to Spark a Commons Revolution
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It’s not necessary that everyone adopt the word commons. What matters is that people understand that what we share together (and how we share it) is as important as what we possess individually.

Parallels to the Origins of Environmentalism

Growing interest in the commons today resembles the origins of the environmental movement in the 1960s. At that time, there was little talk about ecology or the greening of anything. There was, however, a lot of concern about air pollution, pesticides, litter, the loss of wilderness, declining wildlife populations, the death of Lake Erie, toxic substances oozing into rivers, oil spills fouling the oceans, lead paint poisoning inner-city kids, suburbia swallowing up the countryside, mountains of trash piling up in landfills, and unsustainable farming practices ravaging the land. Yet the word environment did not become a household word until the first Earth Day—April 22, 1970. Bringing an assortment of issues together under the banner of environmentalism highlighted the connections between what until then had been seen as separate causes and fueled the unexpected growth of the environmental movement over the next few years.

The commons offers the same promise of uniting people concerned about the common good in many forms into a new kind of movement that reshapes how people think about the nature of ownership and the importance of collaboration in modern society.

A New Way of Thinking and Living

 

More than just a philosophical and political framework for understanding what’s gone wrong, the commons furnishes us a toolkit for fixing problems. Local activists eager to revitalize their community and protect open space are setting up land trusts—a form of community ownership distinct from both private property and government management. Savvy Web users use the cooperative properties of the Internet to challenge corporations who want to undermine this shared resource by fencing it off for private gain. Villagers and city dwellers around the world assert that water is a commons, which cannot be sold, depleted, or controlled by anyone.

To deliver us from current economic and ecological calamities will require more than administering a few tweaks to the operating system that runs our society.

 

These kinds of efforts extend the meaning of the commons beyond something you own to a bigger idea: how we live together. Peter Linebaugh, a preeminent historian of the commons, has coined the word “commoning” to describe the growing efforts he sees to protect and strengthen the things we share. “I want to stress the point that the commons is an activity rather than just a material resource,” he says. “That brings in the essential social element of the commons.”

Why Should We Care About the Commons Today?

Yes, it’s history. But also our best hope for the future. Both the idea and the reality of the commons have been declining since at least the eighteenth century. Why now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, should we struggle to revive them? The simple answer is that we have to. Despite the many benefits it brings us, the economic market operates like a runaway truck. It has no internal mechanism telling it when to stop—stop depleting the commons that sustain it. To put it another way, we’ve been living off a fat commons bank account for centuries, and now it’s running low. We must start making some deposits so we’ll have something for tomorrow. If our old Manifest Destiny was to carve up the commons, our new task is to rebuild it. We must do this to protect the planet, enhance our quality of life, reduce inequality, and leave a better world for our children.

         —Peter Barnes

David Bollier, one of the leading theorists of the commons on the international stage, has defined the term as a social dynamic. “A commons arises whenever a given community decides it wishes to manage a resource in a collective manner, with special regard for equitable access, use and sustainability. It is a social form that has long lived in the shadows of our market culture, and now is on the rise, ” he wrote in the British political journal Renewal.

Julie Ristau and Alexa Bradley, community organizers with extensive experience, find that many people have internalized the competitive ethos of the market mentality so fully that they believe any cooperative action is doomed to fail. They’re losing the ability to even think of working together. Yet at the same time, Ristau and Bradley detect in others “a broad yearning for hope, connection, and restoration. We see a remarkable array of efforts to reconstitute community, to relocalize food, to move toward cooperative economics, to better harmonize our lives with the health of our planet. These efforts spring from a deep human need and desire for different ways of interacting and organizing resources that will help us reconstitute our capacity for shared ownership, collaboration, and stewardship.”

Growing numbers of people are taking steps that move us, gradually, in the direction of a commons-based society—a world in which the fundamental focus on competition that characterizes life today would be balanced with new attitudes and social structures that foster cooperation. This vision is emerging at precisely the point we need it most. Deeply held myths of the last thirty years about the magic of the market have been shattered by the implosion of the global financial bubble, creating both an opening and an acute need for different ways of living.

To deliver us from current economic and ecological calamities will require more than administering a few tweaks to the operating system that runs our society. A complete retooling is needed—a paradigm shift that revises the core principles that guide our culture top to bottom. At this historical moment, the commons vision of a society where “we” matters as much as “me” shines as a beacon of hope for a better world.

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This article is excerpted for YES! Magazine from All That We Share: A Field Guide to the Commons by Jay Walljasper and On the Commons. Jay Walljasper, editor of OnTheCommons.org and author of The Great Neighborhood Book, writes widely about cities, community, sustainability and travel. On The Commons is a commons movement strategy center.

“What, Really, Is the Commons” by Jay Walljasper originally appeared in All That We Share: A Field Guide to the Commons: How to Save the Economy, the Environment, the Internet, Democracy, Our Communities, and Everything Else That Belongs to All of Us Copyright © 2010 by Jay Walljasper, published by The New Press, Inc. and reprinted here with permission.

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The Commons, Short and Sweet

Commons Magazine

The Commons, Short and Sweet

David Bollier on the ABCs of our common wealth

By David Bollier

Commons Strategies

David Bollier, the founding editor of On The Commons, thinks and writes about the commons at Bollier.org , where this post originally appeared under a Creative Commons Attribution license. Bollier’s commons activism is focused on The Commons Law Project and The Commons Strategy Group

David Bollier, commons scholar and activist.

The commons must be understood, then, as a verb as much as a noun. A commons must be animated by bottom-up participation, personal responsibility, transparency and self-policing accountability.

I am always trying to figure out how to explain the idea of the commons to newcomers who find it hard to grasp. In preparation for a talk that I gave at the Caux Forum for Human Security, near Montreux, Switzerland, I came up with a fairly short overview, which I I think it gets to the nub of things.

The commons is….

*A social system for the long-term stewardship of resources that preserves shared values and community identity.

*A self-organized system by which communities manage resources (both depletable and and replenishable) with minimal or no reliance on the Market or State.

The wealth that we inherit or create together and must pass on, undiminished or enhanced, to our children. Our collective wealth includes the gifts of nature, civic infrastructure, cultural works and traditions, and knowledge.

*A sector of the economy (and life!) that generates value in ways that are often taken for granted – and often jeopardized by the Market-State.

There is no master inventory of commons because a commons arises whenever a given community decides it wishes to manage a resource in a collective manner, with special regard for equitable access, use and sustainability.

• The commons is not a resource.* It is a resource plus a defined community and the protocols, values and norms devised by the community to manage its resources. Many resources urgently need to be managed as commons, such as the atmosphere, oceans, genetic knowledge and biodiversity.

There is no commons without commoning – the social practices and norms for managing a resource for collective benefit. Forms of commoning naturally vary from one commons to another because humanity itself is so varied. And so there is no “standard template” for commons; merely “fractal affinities” or shared patterns and principles among commons. The commons must be understood, then, as a verb as much as a noun. A commons must be animated by bottom-up participation, personal responsibility, transparency and self-policing accountability.

One of the great unacknowledged problems of our time is the enclosure of the commons, the expropriation and commercialization of shared resources, usually for private market gain. Enclosure can be seen in the patenting of genes and lifeforms, the use of copyrights to lock up creativity and culture, the privatization of water and land, and attempts to transform the open Internet into a closed, proprietary marketplace, among many other enclosures.

Enclosure is about dispossession. It privatizes and commodifies resources that belong to a community or to everyone, and dismantles a commons-based culture (egalitarian co-production and co-governance) with a market order (money-based producer/consumer relationships and hierarchies). Markets tend to have thin commitments to localities, cultures and ways of life; for any commons, however, these are indispensable.

The classic commons are small-scale and focused on natural resources; an estimated two billion people depend upon commons of forests, fisheries, water, wildlife and other natural resources for their everyday subsistence. But the contemporary struggle of commoners is to find new structures of law, institutional form and social practice that can enable diverse sorts of commons to work at larger scales and to protect their resources from market enclosure.

*New commons forms and practices are needed at all levels*– local, regional, national and global – and there is a need for new types of federation among commoners and linkages between different tiers of commons. Trans-national commons are especially needed to help align governance with ecological realities and serve as a force for reconciliation across political boundaries. Thus to actualize the commons and deter market enclosures, we need innovations in law, public policy, commons-based governance, social practice and culture. All of these will manifest a very different worldview than now prevails in established governance systems, particularly those of the State and Market.

A word about the Caux Forum

 
It’s a wonderful venue for people from dozens of countries to explore the conscience-based, humanitarian and humanistic aspects of international politics and policy. The Forum attracts diplomats, officials from various UN agencies, humanitarian relief workers, human rights activists, conflict-resolution experts and peacemakers, and many others. The event is held in a beautiful castle from the turn of the (19th) century that overlooks the valley below with sweeping vistas.

The conference persuaded me that the commons has a lot to do with “human security” in its broadest sense – subsistence, safety, cultural traditions and knowledge, personal identity. One need only think of the international land grab that is now displacing so millions of commoners from their customary commons of forests, fisheries, farming and other natural resources. People are being pushed from land they have used for centuries, so that foreign investors and national governments can buy up their land, sometimes for speculative purposes.

And what happens to these commoners? Deprived of access to their means of subsistence, they become landless refugees. Many are forced into nearby cities to try to make their way as beggars, hustlers and wage-slaves, introducing a whole new set of problems not only for themselves but for the swollen cities that have little room for them. Finally, the displaced commoners lose their cultural identity and way of life, which is not only a great personal loss but also a loss to humanity in terms of the knowledge and way-of-being that enabled people to live in harmony with the land in a particular location.