COMMONS MAGAZINE
The Commons Heard ‘Round the World
Interest in the commons as a solution to global economic,
political and social challenges is growing.
OTC Fellow David Bollier is forging ties with new
groups emerging around the world.
The venerable English pub has long been a place where everyone from the businessman to the housewife to the student, factory worker and vicar could meet as equals — a social commons that reflected the neighborhood and its idiosyncrasies. Over the past twenty years or more, however, large corporations have consolidated the ownership of British pubs so that some companies own thousands of them. The trend has accelerated in recent years, forcing hundreds of independent local pubs to close.
In this period of economic crisis and political shifts,
ideas associated with the commons are emerging
across many levels of society as a new force. The
word is now heard more frequently in public discussion,
and is evolving into new linguistic forms as people’s sense of what the
commons means expands.
The Solar Commons is an innovative project to
generate solar power in the rights-of-way along
public roads and other commons, with profits
going into a trust to support education, environmental,
economic equality and commons projects
in the local community.
A demonstration project
now underway in the Phoenix area recently won
the won the U.S. Green Building Council’s 2009
Legacy Project Award, a prestigious honor sought by
many green energy initiatives across the nation.
West Marin Commons is working to make Point
Reyes Station and neighboring towns at the edge of
the California’s Golden Gate National Seashore into
a model of commons thinking and practice, and to
foster a social ecology that complements the natural
kind in which the area is so rich. This unique community
effort to strengthen the commons in one
place is coordinated by OTC Fellow Jonathan Rowe
and Elizabeth Barnett.
The following remarks were delivered by Silke Helfrich of Germany, a long-time international commons advocate, to the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, on January 28, 2010. Entitled “The commons as a paradigm for social movements and beyond” (version 1.0), Helfrich’s speech offers a strong, far-ranging case for why the commons holds promise in galvanizing social movements and building a new vision of society.
At a time when our national (and global) predicaments are seen mostly as a matter for economists and policy wonks to solve, historian Roger Kennedy comes forward to remind us of the critical role of art. Art is not just an aesthetic pleasure or indulgence, he insists; it is a way in which people makes sense of their problems. It is a way of re-imagining the common good.
The public domain — long a stepchild in the fierce politics of copyright law — is finally starting to come into its own. A diverse array of individuals and organizations associated with COMMUNIA, the European “thematic network” on the digital public domain, have issued a major manifesto explaining the importance of the public domain to democratic culture.
Sometimes it’s easiest to see a commons when it exists in a bounded geographic space that incubates a distinctive culture and set of social practices. That can certainly be said about the mountainous areas of southern West Virginia, where people’s interactions with the landscape have bred communities whose lives revolve around their interactions with the landscape.
A depressing view of America’s future smacked me in face recently as I read this New York Times’
analysis of the budget deficit , which concluded there’s no hope for major new federal initiatives on the home front for at least a decade. A high speed rail network? Nope. Relief for families going broke sending their kids to college? Unh uh. Restoration of lost spending for public services, anti-poverty campaigns, environmental initiatives, or other commons-based necessities. Sorry.
The growing sophistication of the digital commons can be seen in its expanding political ambitions, collaboratvie innovations and stylish new forms of advocacy. Below, three examples of highly original commons-based projects that really rock.
Today the U.S. Supreme Court gave the go-ahead for corporations to enclose our democracy. The Court ruled that corporations must legally be considered “persons” who are thereby entitled to First Amendment rights. By this tortured logic, long-standing limits on corporate contributions to political campaigns constitute an unconstitutional infringement of free speech.
Funny, if corporations are persons, why don’t they have the same kind of affirmative moral and legal responsibilities that real people have?
As a grad student, Daniel Reetz was starting to choke on the high prices being charged for his textbooks. Then one day he had an epiphany: it would be cheaper to buy a good camera and photograph a textbook than it would be to buy the textbook itself.
It is widely acknowledged that greenhouse gas emission-fueled climate change is having a profound and negative impact on fresh water systems around the world. Warmer weather causes more rapid evaporation of lakes and rivers, reduced snow and ice cover on open water systems, and melting glaciers.
We’ve all seen the F.B.I. notices at the beginning of DVDs and the dire warnings by the record labels: their works are “private property” and any unauthorized uses amount to “theft” or “piracy” punishable by law. It’s a big lie. There is a whole class of “unauthorized uses” that are entirely legal, not to mention necessary for education, democracy and ordinary social life. It’s called “fair use,” which is a legal doctrine of copyright law that allows anyone to excerpt and re-use film, music, books and other copyrighted works without getting advance authorization or paying any money.
Human solidarity as expressed in the slogan “all for one and one for all” is the foundation of commoning. In capitalist society this principle is permitted in childhood games or in military combat. Otherwise, when it is not honored in hypocrisy, it appears in the struggle contra capitalism or, as Rebecca Solnit shows, in the disasters of fire, flood, or earthquake.
West Marin Commons is working to make Point
Reyes Station and neighboring towns at the edge of
the California’s Golden Gate National Seashore into
a model of commons thinking and practice, and to
foster a social ecology that complements the natural
kind in which the area is so rich. This unique community
effort to strengthen the commons in one
place is coordinated by OTC Fellow Jonathan Rowe
and Elizabeth Barnett.
For a few days last month, climate change hit the headlines as politicians, protesters, pundits, scientists, bureaucrats, and many others converged on Copenhagen to find a unified global strategy to reduce greenhouse gases. The UN summit was generally tagged a failure, and the attention of the media instantly shifted to Tiger Woods’ sex life and other matters.
Shareable.net, a new website exploring the potential of collaborative and common action, offers its list of the 15 best books of 2009
The year 2010 may be remembered as a turning point in many American cities, towns and suburbs.
It could be the moment when citizens say “enough is enough” and rally to save essential public services from the chopping block, even if it means paying higher local taxes.