COMMONS MAGAZINE
The vocabulary of the commons is expanding as more people realize the practical value of these ideas and actions. No longer simply a noun, the commons is now spoken about with verbs and adjectives.
Here are some examples of the new language of the commons.
COMMONS: What we share. Creations of both nature and society
that belong to all of us equally, and should be maintained for
future generations.
Inner city residents in former industrial centers, already
struggling with economic challenges and coping
with the fallout of the financial crisis, are turning
to the commons as their hope for the future. Significant
grassroots initiatives are underway in places like
Cleveland, Detroit and Milwaukee. OTC is planning
a series of public events showcasing the promise of
local commons-based action in Detroit at the time of
the U.S. Social Forum next June. OTC’s communications
Rising public interest in local food as a logical way
to promote healthy eating, strong local economies
and land conservation fits well into the framework
of the commons. OTC co-directors Julie Ristau
and Ana Micka are involved with this issue on many
fronts, and gave a well-received presentation at the
National Food Security Conference last October
in Des Moines.
A friend who owns an independent bookstore was recently telling me about a disturbing trend where people go into her store, browse titles, read a few pages, and then go order it from Amazon, all to save whatever you save by shopping on line.
Wealth for the Common Good is a new commons-based
initiative co-launched by Institute for Policy
Studies’ Chuck Collins (also an OTC Fellows) to
mobilize business leaders and wealthy individuals
who can leverage their influence to challenge
inequality and promote a more progressive tax
code.
The battle to preserve water as a common good takes to the Roman streets this weekend. As you turn on the tap to hydrate yourself today, please take a moment to think of our Italian colleagues fighting to overturn the water-privatizing Ronchi law.
Here’s a really illuminating exchange between two European water activists, one Italian and one German about the implications of the Italian fight for European water.
“Dear friends,
Just a brief update on what’s happening in Italy.
Sometimes it just takes a determined set of commoners to get the job done. Impatient with the lethargy of the federal government in making its own films and videos available online, info-activist Carl Malamud has launched the International Amateur Scanning League. Dozens of volunteers are digitizing government-produced DVDs on everything from agricultural advice to presidential addresses, and putting them on the Internet.
If corporations are legally “persons,” as the U.S. Supreme Court recently declared in its infamous Citizens United case — a ruling that opens the floodgates for corporate contributions to candidates — then why not run an actual corporation for Congress?
Our Water Commons, a new program of On the
Commons, has launched its new website, brimming with resources and practical information. The site also appears in Spanish.
Interview by Fran Korten
Reprinted from Yes! Magazine (Spring 2010)
Elinor Ostrom was an unusual choice for the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics. For one thing, she is the first woman to receive the prize. Her Ph.D. is in political science, not economics (though she minored in economics, collaborates with many economists, and considers herself a political economist). But what makes this award particularly special is that her work is about cooperation, while standard economics focuses on competition.
The neighborhood is the basic building block of the commons— indeed, of human society itself— and successful efforts to make the world a better place usually start right there.
The pantheon of property law generally honors the great virtues of private ownership — while making the case that the public benefits from such arrangements.
This morning I attended part of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency board meeting, where they considered a proposal to increase transit fares and cut service—again.
We’ve all seen the bumper sticker, “The Earth does not belong to us. We belong to the earth.” A pithy tagline meant to point out that human culture must align itself more closely with ecological imperatives. But is that a simple moralistic claim or a scientific, demonstrable fact?
A handful of psychologists are starting to conclude that human consciousness has a deep interconnections with nature — and that interfering with our sense of place and love of nature can cause severe emotional distress.
2009 Economics Nobel Prize winner Elinor Ostrom’s seminal book, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action, was published in 1990. But her research on common property goes back to the early 1960s, when she wrote her dissertation on groundwater in California. Here she offers some advice on how to manage a commons.
1) Define clear group boundaries.
2)Match rules governing use of common goods to local needs and conditions.
3) Ensure that those affected by the rules can participate in modifying the rules.
By JEREMY SMITH
1. The Copenhagen Climate Change Protests
On October 24, 2009, hundreds of thousands of people around the globe came together for the 350 Day of International Climate Action, asking their governments and nations to embrace a more sustainable way of life. They shared the same purpose, but interpreted it in their own locally relevant way all around the world, from Sydney to Hanoi to Mumbai.
Despite the huge infusions of bailout capital by the federal government, many banks continue their reluctance to lend, even to creditworthy businesses and individuals. If nothing else, the banking crisis of the past 18 months has shown that when the chips are down, it’s the government and taxpayers who do the bidding of the banks, not vice-versa. The common wealth is commandeered to shore up private wealth because “the free market” is seen as the only realistic vehicle for advancing the common good.
One of the big problems in science is the proliferation of databases whose content is technically incompatible or legally proprietary in some fashion — and therefore unable to be used by others in their research. For years a number of smart, committed scientists, law scholars and techies have grappled with the problem of making data accessible and re-useable. Now they have released a blueprint for doing so.
Do Americans really pay fewer taxes than Europeans? Contrary to conventional wisdom, the answer surprisingly is: not really. That’s because in return for their taxes, Europeans – even those unemployed during these tough times – have access to a generous support system for families and individuals that most Americans can only imagine.
One of the virtues of a commons-based economics is that it would help sweep aside some of the foundational fallacies of neoclassical economics.