Think Like a Commoner, Second Edition
Description
Welcome to the Commonsverse, a parallel social economy helping millions of commoners take charge and escape the predatory Market/State order.
This completely revised and updated edition of Think Like a Commoner offers a succinct yet thorough account of the history and future of the commons.
Working outside of both market capitalism and state power, commoners are deeply committed to developing local, practical solutions, social trust, and community. From relocalized agriculture to open-source learning, diverse types of commons - ecological, social, digital, urban - are building a decentralized Commonsverse. This parallel economy is powered by the peer governance of shared wealth; respectful engagement with the Earth; participation; and fairness.
Widely respected activist and scholar David Bollier explores the full scope of the commons in contemporary life, including:
- A survey of successful commons initiatives, from shared land and water, to digital commons, mutual aid networks, alternative currencies, cohousing, and more
- The centuries-old cultural traditions, Indigenous practices, and historical folkways that gave rise to the modern commons Commons under siege - how enclosures of shared wealth through trade treaties, copyright and trademark law, commodification, privatization, and outright theft are dispossessing commoners and worsening inequality
- Understanding the commons as a profoundly relational, living social organism that itself generates value.
The Commonsverse is a dynamic, evolving socio-political space that is constantly being reimagined and rebuilt. Driven forward by worldwide networks of traditionalists and innovators working collaboratively outside of mainstream institutions, commoning constitutes a quiet revolution of real, functional alternatives. Pull up a chair, relax, and let's talk about the commons.
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David Bollier is an American activist and scholar who studies the commons as a new paradigm for re-imagining economics, politics, and culture. He has been Director of the Reinventing the Commons Program at the Schumacher Center for a New Economics (USA) since 2016, and frequently collaborates with an international network of brilliant irregulars. He blogs at Bollier.org, hosts the podcast Frontiers of Commoning, and has written ten books on the commons, including The Commoner's Catalog for Changemaking, Patterns of Commoning, The Wealth of the Commons, and, with Silke Helfrich, Free, Fair and Alive. Bollier lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Content
Preface to the Second Edition
Introduction
1. The Rediscovery of the Commons
PART I. ENCLOSURE, DISPOSSESSION, AND THE ECLIPSE OF COMMONING
2. The Tyranny of the "Tragedy" Myth
3. Enclosures of Nature
The Massive International Land Grab
The Privatization of Water
The Corporatization of Food
4. All That Is Shared Becomes a Market Commodity
The Marketization of Universities and Their Research
Enclosures of Infrastructure
Enclosures of Civic Infrastructure
The Many Costs of Enclosure
Part II. Commons as Living, Generative Systems
5. Many Galaxies of Commons
Subsistence Commons
Indigenous Peoples' Commons
Mutual Aid and Gift Economies
Alternative Local Currencies
Cooperatives
6. The Eclipsed History of the Commons
What Evolutionary Sciences Tell Us About Cooperation
The Forgotten Legal History of the Commons
The Liberal State and the Eclipse of Vernacular Law
7. The Commons as a Relational Organism
The Metaphysics of the Commons Is Relational
8. Local, Vernacular, and Alive
Commoning Our Way to a Land Ethic
Vernacular Culture and the Commons
A New Vision of Local Development
Urban Commons .
9. Digital Rebels in the Big Tech Imperium
It All Began with Free Software
Creative Commons: A License to Share
The Open-Access Publishing Revolution
Cosmolocal Production, DAOs, and Commons Infrastructures
PART II. COMMONS AS LIVING, GENERATIVE SYSTEMS
10. Relationalized Property and Finance
The Inalienable Rights of Commoners
John Locke's Theories About Property Rights
The Measure of Wealth
Relationalized Property
Relationalized Finance
11. Reimagining State Power
State Power and Commons Are Different Orders of Life
Commoning and International Law
State Trustee Commons
Legal Hacks on Western Jurisprudence
Commons/Public Partnerships
Conclusion: The Future of the Commons
The Commons as Gift and Duty
Tools for Exploring the Commonsverse
The Commons, Short and Sweet
The Triad of Commoning: Social Life, Peer Governance, and Provisioning
The Logic of the Commons and the Market
Further Reading
Websites Engaged with Commons and Commoning
Acknowledgments
Index
About the Author
About New Society Publishers
