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Tag Archives: commons
Saving Farmland, Supporting Young Farmers
Saving Farmland, Supporting Young Farmers It’s a bit odd that land reform is barely mentioned in most progressive agendas. Maybe that’s because it is seen as challenging the presumed virtues of private property and capitalist markets. Yet secure access and tenure to land is essential for achieving so many progressive goals, from building new sorts […]
Hacking the Law to Open Up Zones of Commoning
Hacking the Law to Open Up Zones of Commoning The following essay is my contribution to the recently published anthology, ‘The Great Awakening: New Modes of Life amidst Capitalist Ruins’ (Punctum Books), published under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. I co-edited this volume with my colleague Professor Anna Grear of Cardiff University. More about the book at […]
Returning Land Back to the Commons
Returning Land Back to the Commons Graham Truscott tells the story of how Melbourne Area Transition bought a redundant cabbage field and turned it back into biodiverse, fruitful, community-owned land. With the opening of a beautiful new hub building in October 2018, 4 hectares (10 acres) of former cabbage field (last held in common ownership in 1791) […]
Plunder of the Commons: A Manifesto for Sharing Public Wealth by Guy Standing
Plunder of the Commons: A Manifesto for Sharing Public Wealth by Guy Standing Solving the problems of our times together by reviving the commons Anyone looking for an excellent description of the damaging effects of austerity will find it in this book. Anyone looking for an analysis of the ecological crisis and what to do […]
“Every time a civilization is in crisis, there is a return of the commons” – Interview with Michel Bauwens
“Every time a civilization is in crisis, there is a return of the commons” – Interview with Michel Bauwens The commons are nothing new. Historically citizens always came together to pool resources and manage them collectively and autonomously. It is the responsibility of cities and states to identify, connect and support them. Today the commons […]
A Bold Agenda for Treating Land as a Commons
A Bold Agenda for Treating Land as a Commons The privileges of land ownership are so huge and far-reaching that they are generally taken as immutable facts of life – something that politics cannot possibly address. A hearty salute is therefore in order for a fantastic new report edited by George Monbiot, the brilliant columnist […]
Book Review: The Sustainable Economics of Elinor Ostrom: Commons, Contestation and Craft
Book Review: The Sustainable Economics of Elinor Ostrom: Commons, Contestation and Craft The threat posed by global warming and environmental degradation are the most pressing examples of what has become known over the past several decades as the ‘tragedy of the commons’. In this book, Derek Wall explores the work of the late Nobel Laureate, […]
Community Development and the Commons
Community Development and the Commons The commons offers a framework and a process for effectively and equitably stewarding the resources communities need to live in dignity. Last August, 200 people from across Oakland, California came together to envision and design a development plan for a small parcel of public land. For months leading up to […]
Making, adapting, sharing: fabricating open-source agricultural tools
Making, adapting, sharing: fabricating open-source agricultural tools This is a story about people who build their own machines. It’s a story about people who, due to necessity and/or conscious choice, do not buy commercial equipment to work their lands or animals, but who invent, create and adapt machines to their specific needs: for harvesting legumes, […]
Rethinking the balance between equality and hierarchy: 2) New insights into the evolution of hierarchy and inequality throughout the ages
Rethinking the balance between equality and hierarchy: 2) New insights into the evolution of hierarchy and inequality throughout the ages This is a follow up on our earlier article on finding techniques for ‘reverse dominance’, i.e. avoiding the concentration of power. More indications of how to restore a new balance towards egalitarian (or rather ‘equipotential’) […]
Beet the System! A Dialogue on Food Sovereignty, Inclusivity and Healing the Rural/Urban Divide.
BEET THE SYSTEM! A DIALOGUE ON FOOD SOVEREIGNTY, INCLUSIVITY AND HEALING THE RURAL/URBAN DIVIDE. Can food and food sovereignty be the catalyst for a Commons Transition? For over 30 years, FIAN International has been advocating for the right to food sovereignty. Their work unites bottom-up grassroots movements and local administrations, with a special focus on inclusivity […]
George Monbiot on the Commons
George Monbiot on the Commons George Monbiot, a columnist for the British newspaper and website The Guardian, may be the most prominent champion of the commons that I’ve discovered in mainstream journalism today. He has long been a compelling, out-of-the-box thinker on all sorts of economic and environmental issues. Now he is introducing the commons […]
Book of the Day: Integral Ecology: Toward a Perma-Circular Society
Book of the Day: Integral Ecology: Toward a Perma-Circular Society Christian Arnsperger: My colleague Dominique Bourg (also from the University of Lausanne) and myself have just released a new book in French, entitled Ecologie intégrale: Pour une société permacirculaire(translation: Integral Ecology: Toward a Perma-Circular Society), published in Paris by Presses Universitaires de France. It’s the culmination of a […]
There’s only one way to avoid climate catastrophe: ‘de-growing’ our economy
There’s only one way to avoid climate catastrophe: ‘de-growing’ our economy Jason Hickel: You can almost feel the planet writhing. This summer brought some of the biggest, most destructive storms in recorded history: Harvey laid waste to huge swathes of Texas; Irma left Barbuda virtually uninhabitable; Maria ravaged Dominica and plunged Puerto Rico into darkness. The […]
The Seeds of Agroecology and Common Ownership
The Seeds of Agroecology and Common Ownership The increasingly globalised industrial food system that transnational agribusiness promotes is not feeding the world and is responsible for some of the planet’s most pressing political, social and environmental crises. Localised, traditional methods of food production have given way to globalised supply chains dominated by transnational companies policies and actions which […]
