Toward an Understanding of the Commons

The atmosphere and oceans, languages and culture, the stores of human knowledge and wisdom, the informal support systems of community, the peace and quiet we crave, the generic building blocks of life – these are all aspects of the commons.

In recent years, some very important work has been done to create a renewed awareness of an ancient concept known as “the Commons.” In most traditional societies, it was assumed that what belonged to one belonged to all. Many indigenous societies to this day cannot conceive of denying a person or a family basic access to food, air, land, water and livelihood. Many modern societies extended the same concept of universal access to the notion of a social Commons, creating education, health care and social security for all members of the community. Since adopting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, governments are obliged to protect the human rights, cultural diversity and food security of their citizens.

American Commons pioneer and journalist Jonathan Rowe captures the essence of the concept: “The commons is the vast realm that lies outside of both the economic market and the institutional state, and that all of us typically use without toll or price. The atmosphere and oceans, languages and culture, the stores of human knowledge and wisdom, the informal support systems of community, the peace and quiet we crave, the generic building blocks of life – these are all aspects of the commons.” Noted Canadian environmentalist Richard Bocking says that the Commons are those things to which we have rights just by being a member of the human family: “The air we breathe, the freshwater we drink, the seas, forests, and mountains, the genetic heritage through which all life is transmitted, the diversity of life itself.” Commons is synonymous with community, cooperation and respect for the rights and preferences of others, he adds. Some Commons, such as the atmosphere, outer space and the oceans, may be thought of as global, while others, such as public spaces, common land, forests, the gene pool, and local medicines, are community Commons. “The commons have the quality of always having been there. One generation after another, available to all,” says Rowe.

The International Forum on Globalization (IFG) suggests that there are basically three types of Commons. The first category includes the water, land, air, forests and fisheries on which everyone’s life depends. The second includes the culture and knowledge that are collective creations of our species. The third is the social Commons that guarantees public access to health care, education and social security. The IFG reminds us that as recently as two decades ago, large parts of the world still lived off the land, many in complete isolation from the global trade and market system, and billions lived their everyday lives within a Commons framework.

In a short period of time, the private values of exclusion, possession, monopoly and personal or corporate gain started to replace the Commons’ values of inclusion, collective ownership and community assets.

The integrity and health of the Commons, notes the IFG, crashed when economic globalization and market fundamentalism were introduced as the only model of development for the world, and transnational corporations gained access to the genetic, mineral, timber and water resources of even the most remote parts of the earth for the first time. Some refer to this process as the second “enclosure of the Commons,” the first personified by the removal, starting in 1740, of peasant rights to farm, graze and hunt on lands owned by nobility in England and Wales. Enclosure of the Commons took place in the global South as well. Indian physicist and writer Vandana Shiva points out that the privatization of the Commons was essential for the industrial revolution in order to provide a steady supply of raw material to industry. The policy of deforestation and the enclosure of the Commons were replicated in the colonies of India, for instance. In 1865, a law was passed, lifting protection of the forests as a Commons, paving the way for the commercial exploitation of both land and forests. The ensuing marginalization of peasant communities’ rights over their forests, sacred groves and “wastelands” was the first and prime cause of impoverishment for millions of Indian people.

A famous essay written in 1968 called The Tragedy of the Commons by American biologist, Garrett Hardin, gave philosophical and political momentum to the private assault on the Commons. Hardin claimed that if no one owned the Commons, it would soon be plundered, as no one would be responsible for it. He used this argument as a rationale for privatizing common property and proponents of privatization cite his book to this day. This is despite the fact that most researchers have denounced Hardin for ignoring the capacity of common property management systems to provide for sound and sustainable stewardship of the biological and ecosystem commons, where such management structures exist and are nurtured. In fact, as Anil Naidoo of the Blue Planet Project argues, the tragedy of the Commons could be better described as the tragedy of the market, allowed because there were no functioning Commons management structures. Indeed no one is advocating an open free-for-all on the Commons as a counter argument to Hardin. Rather than being used to impose control on access to public resources, however, Hardin’s book was used to destroy common regimes.

When governments do not adequately protect the Commons on our behalf, they fail us, the Commons and future generations.

In a short period of time, the private values of exclusion, possession, monopoly and personal or corporate gain started to replace the Commons’ values of inclusion, collective ownership and community assets. In his book Capitalism 3.0, A Guide to Reclaiming the Commons, Peter Barnes of On The Commons describes this as “striving to share ownership as widely, rather than narrowly, as possible.” Many areas once thought to be outside the purview of the market became fair game; the race was on to, on one hand, capture and profit from the land, genetic, water, mineral and forest resources of the Commons, thus turning these Commons into commodities, and, on the other, to use the air, ocean and freshwater Commons as a dumping ground for waste (thus passing the problems created by the enclosure of the Commons back to the public to live with or cleanNovember 6, 2008universal education and water services have all become targets for large for-profit corporations, backed by powerful global trade and financial institutions such as the World Trade Organization and the World Bank. These institutions often limit the capacity of governments to regulate and protect the Commons on behalf of their citizens in order to open up markets, in the name of economic prosperity, for corporations to grow and compete.

Another On The Commons pioneer, David Bollier, outlines five reasons to be concerned with the increasing market exploitation of our Commons. First, enclosure needlessly siphons hundreds of billions of dollars away from the public purse every year, money that could be used to invest in and protect the Commons. Second, enclosure fosters market concentration and the dominance of large corporations, which have the market clout and political influence to obtain public resources on favorable terms. Third, enclosure threatens the environment by favoring short-term profits over long-term stewardship. Corporations find it financially desirable to shift health and safety risks to the public and future generations. Fourth, enclosure imposes new limits on citizen rights and public accountability, as private decision-making supplants open procedures of democratic polity. Finally, says Bollier, enclosure imposes market values in realms that should be free from commodification, such as community and family life, public institutions and democratic processes.

A new narrative

A new narrative, protected by a legal framework of its own, would allow us to manage our collective resources for the common good.

Instead of this privatization and unregulated use, what is needed is a new narrative for the Commons. As Richard Bocking notes, a central characteristic of a true Commons is its careful collaborative management by those who use it, a management often more cautious than that of private, or even state owned resources. In fact, wise use of a Commons does not always mean there is no place for the market (although there are powerful arguments to keep the market out of some Commons areas altogether.) Rather, wise management of the Commons allocates access based on a set of priorities. As Peter Barnes points out, when capitalism started, nature was abundant and capital was scarce, so protections for capital were created. Now however, we (in the global North at least) are “awash in capital and literarily running out of nature.” Another set of priorities and another economic system are badly needed. In fact, it is because there is little acknowledgment of the value of the Commons in our culture, argues Rowe, that we have not created a legal framework to protect it, leaving the Commons subject to constant despoilation. Growth has cannibalized the Commons, taking goods from the Commons and selling them back to us as commodities.

David Bollier reminds us that we, as citizens, own the Commons. When governments do not adequately protect the Commons on our behalf, they fail us, the Commons and future generations. Business exists to perform in the market and will do so until constrained by governments. Or, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “It may be true that the law cannot change the heart, but it can restrain the heartless.” The issue, says Bollier, is how to set equitable and appropriate boundaries between the two realms, and redress the imbalance that has created the true tragedy of the Commons. “The market and its values assert dominion over all, and in so doing, erode the sinews of community, undermine open scientific inquiry, weaken democratic culture and sap the long-term vitality of the economy.” The Commons need not result in “tragedy” if the right structures are put in place. When ownership of resources in a Commons is not alienated, but controlled by a stable, defined community, argues Bollier, environmental sustainability and democratic accountability are more easily achieved.

On the Commons members advocate for the preservation of Commons assets and the equitable sharing of their benefits. How to do this will vary with the type of Commons. Some, like wilderness, should be largely off limits. Others, like the cultural Commons, need to be more inclusive. Those with a physical threshold, like fisheries and the atmosphere, need strictly enforceable sustainable-use limits. We ignore the enclosure of the global Commons at our peril. The market is like a runaway engine, with no governor to tell it when to stop depleting the Commons that sustains us all. What is needed is a “counter narrative” to the current narrative of individual ownership and control as the best way to manage resources. A new narrative, protected by a legal framework of its own, would allow us to manage our collective resources for the common good. This is not an esoteric concept. If we fail to create a new way of thinking about the planet and our role in it, we may not survive.

 

OnTheCommons.org