There is much more to be said about the many fields of commoning in the world. Each has its own history, evolving paradigms, complexities, and promise. To explore specific examples and themes raised in this book, citations for the entire text can be found here. Additional resources for exploring the Commonsverse are included below:
The commons is:
The commons is not just a resource. A commons is a resource plus a defined community and the protocols, values, traditions, and norms devised by the community to manage it. More to the point, the word “resource” is often an inappropriate term to use in describing commons because commoners tend to have a relationship of care and affection for the living systems they engage with, such as land, forests, urban spaces, and care communities. So to talk about the atmosphere, oceans, genetic knowledge, and biodiversity as commons is a category error; these are unowned living systems that desperately need to be treated respectfully by human beings, and not owned and managed in anthropocentric terms.
There is no commons without commoning—the social practices and norms for managing a resource for collective benefit. Forms of commoning naturally vary from one commons to another because humanity itself is so varied. And so there is no standard template for commons, merely “fractal affinities” or shared patterns among commons. The commons must be understood as a verb (social processes and activities) as much as a noun (a thing). A commons must be animated by bottom-up participation, personal responsibility, transparency, and peer-policing accountability.
One of the great unacknowledged problems of our time is the enclosure of the commons, the expropriation and commercialization of shared resources, usually for private market gain. Enclosure takes countless forms, but can be seen in the patenting of genes and lifeforms, the use of copyrights to appropriate creativity and culture, the privatization of water and land, and attempts to transform the open internet into a closed, proprietary marketplace.
Enclosure is about dispossession. It privatizes and commodifies resources that belong to a community or to everyone and dismantles a commons-based culture (egalitarian coproduction and cogovernance) with a market order (money-based producer/consumer relationships and hierarchies). Markets tend to have thin commitments to localities, cultures, and ways of life; for any commons, however, these are indispensable.
The classic commons are small-scale and focused on natural systems. An estimated two billion people depend upon commons of forests, fisheries, water, wildlife, and other natural resources for their everyday subsistence. But the contemporary struggle of commoners is to find new structures of law, institutional form, infrastructure, and social practice that can enable commons to steward their care-wealth without fear of market enclosure.
Open networks are a natural hosting infrastructure for commons. They provide accessible, low-cost spaces where people can devise their own forms of governance, rules, social practices, and cultural expression. That’s why the internet has spawned so many robust, productive commons: free and open-source software, countless wikis, more than twenty-one thousand open-access scholarly journals, the open educational resources (OER) movement, the open data movement, sites for collaborative art and culture, and global design networks for localized production. In an age of capital-driven network platforms, however, openness is not enough. Tech companies will enclose or eclipse digital commons unless commoners take affirmative steps to protect the communities and wealth they generate.
New commons forms and practices are needed at all levels—local, regional, national, and global. There is a need for new types of federation among commoners and linkages between different tiers of commons.
Transnational commons are especially needed to help align governance with ecological realities and serve as a force for ecological restoration across political boundaries. Thus, to actualize the commons and deter market enclosures, we need innovations in law, public policy, commons-based governance, social practice, and culture. All of these will give rise to a very different worldview than that which now prevails in established governance systems, particularly those associated with the market/state alliance.
The following patterns of commoning are introduced in the book Free, Fair and Alive, by David Bollier and Silke Helfrich. The patterns reflect recurring dynamics in the social life, governance, and provisioning carried out by commons. The patterns are designed to be open to adaptation and extention, and in fact, four of the thirty-three patterns below were identified and developed by the Commons Institut in Germany and added to the Triad of Commoning, along with minor modifications.
Cultivate Shared Purpose and Values
Ritualize Togetherness
Contribute Freely
Practice Gentle Reciprocity Trust Situated Knowing
Deepen Communion with Nature
Show Empathy and Self-Responsibility in Communication Preserve Relationships in Addressing Conflicts
Reflect on Your Peer Governance
Bring Diversity into Shared Purpose
Create Semipermeable Membranes Around Commons Honor Transparency in a Sphere of Trust
Share Knowledge Generously Assure Consent in Decision-making
Create Organizational Structures that Foster Coequality Rely on Heterarchy
Self-monitor Compliance with Rules
Apply Graduated and Context-Sensitive Sanctions
Patterns for Dealing with Market Culture
Relationalize Property
Intervene to Stop Co-optation and Enclosures Keep Commons and Commerce Distinct
Fund Provisioning in Commons-Friendly Ways
Make and Use Together
Varieties of Allocation in a Commons
Contribute and Share
Pool, Cap, and Divide Up
Pool, Cap and Mutualize
Respect Care Work as Much as “Productive Work” Strive for Money-Independent Security
Share the Risks of Provisioning Use Convivial Tools
Rely on Distributed Structures Adapt and Renew Creatively Trade with Price-Sovereignty
Below is a select listing of books that elaborate on themes raised in Think Like a Commoner.
Barnes, Peter, Capitalism 3.0: A Guide to Reclaiming the Commons (Barrett–Koehler, 2006).
Bollier, David, Commoner’s Catalog for Changemaking (Schumacher Center for a New Economics, 2021), available at commonerscatalog.org.
———, and Silke Helfrich, Free, Fair and Alive: The Insurgent Power of the Commons (New Society Publishers, 2019), available at freefairandalive.org.
———, and Silke Helfrich, editors, The Wealth of the Commons: A World Beyond Market and State (Levellers Press, 2012), available at wealthofthecommons.org.
———, and Silke Helfrich, editors, Patterns of Commoning (Off the Common Books, 2015), available at patternsofcommoning.org.
Büscher, Bram, and Robert Fletcher, The Conservation Revolution: Radical Ideas for Saving Nature Beyond the Anthropocene (Verso, 2020).
Cayley, David, Ivan Illich: An Intellectual Journey (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2021).
Dardot, Pierre, and Christian Laval, Common: On Revolution in the 21st Century (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019).
De Angelis, Massimo, Omnia Sunt Communia: On the Commons and the Transformation to Postcapitalism (Zed Books, 2017).
Donahue, Brian, Reclaiming the Commons: Community Farms and Forests in a New England Town (Yale University Press, 1999).
Foster, Sheila R., and Christian Iaione, Co-Cities: Innovative Transitions Toward Just and Self-Sustaining Communities (MIT Press, 2022).
Gibson-Graham, J. K., and Kelly Dombroski, The Handbook of Diverse Economies (Elgar, 2020).
Hallsmith, Gwendolyn, and Bernard Lietaer, Creating Wealth: Growing Local Economies with Local Currencies (New Society Publishers, 2011).
Hardt, Michael, and Antonio Negri, Commonwealth (Harvard University Press, 2009).
Kothari, Ashish et al., Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary (Tulika Books, 2019).
Moulaert, Frank, et al., From Land Ownership to Landed Commons: Social Innovation in the Commoning of Scarce Land Resources (Elgar, 2024).
Rau, Ted J., Collective Power: Patterns for a Self-Organized Future (Sociocracy for All, 2023).
Schroyer, Trent, Beyond Western Economics: Remembering Other Economic Cultures (Routledge, 2009).
Shuman, Michael H., Going Local: Creating Self-Reliant Communities in a Global Age (Routledge, 2000).
Standing, Guy, The Blue Commons: Rescuing the Economy of the Sea (Pelican Books, 2022).
Van Abel, Bas, Lucas Evers, et al., eds, Open Design Now: Why Design Cannot Remain Exclusive (The Netherlands, Bis Publishers, 2011), available at opendesignnow.org.
Weston, Burns H., and David Bollier, Green Governance: Ecological Survival, Human Rights and the Law of the Commons (Cambridge University Press, 2013).
Dolsak, Nives, and Elinor Ostrom, The Commons in the New Millennium: Challenges and Adaptations (MIT Press, 2003).
McKay, Bonnie J., and James M. Acheson, The Question of the Commons: The Culture and Ecology of Communal Resources (University of Arizona Press, 1987).
National Research Council, Elinor Ostrom, Thomas Dietz, et al., The Drama of the Commons: Committee on the Human Dimensions of Global Change (National Academy Press, 2002).
Ostrom, Elinor, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (Cambridge University Press, 1990).
Wall, Derek, The Sustainable Economics of Elinor Ostrom: Commons, Contestation and Craft (MIT Press, 2014).
Benkler, Yochai, The Penguin and the Leviathan: The Triumph of Cooperation Over Self-Interest (Crown Business, 2010).
Bowles, Samuel, and Herbert Gintis, A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and Its Evolution (Princeton University Press, 2011).
Gintis, Herbert, Samuel Bowles, et al., Moral Sentiments and Material Interests: The Foundations of Cooperation in Economic Life (MIT Press, 2005).
Hyde, Lewis, The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property (Vintage Books, 1979/2019).
Kropotkin, Petr, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (Boston: Porter Sargent Publishers/Extending Horizons Books, reprint of 1914 edition).
Ohlson, Kristin, Sweet in Tooth and Claw: Stories of Generosity and Cooperation in the Natural World (Patagonia, 2022).
Sennett, Richard, Together: The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of Cooperation (Yale University Press, 2012).
Siegel, Daniel J., IntraConnected: Mwe (Me + We) as the Integration of Self, Identity and Belonging (Norton, 2023).
Atkins, Paul W. B., David Sloan Wilson, and Steven C. Hayes, Prosocial: Using Evolutionary Science to Build Productive, Equitable and Collaborative Groups (Context Press, 2019).
Anderson, Erik Jamp, Unseen Beings: How We Forgot the World Is More Than Human (Hay House, 2023).
Harding, Stephan, Animate Earth: Science, Intuition and Gaia, 2nd Edition (Green Books, 2011).
Latour, Bruno, Facing Gaia: Eight Lectures on the New Climatic Regime (Polity, 2017).
Sheldrake, Merlin, Entangled Life (Random House, 2021).
Weber, Andreas, Matter and Desire: An Erotic Ecology (Chelsea Green, 2014).
———, Sharing Life: The Ecopolitics of Reciprocity (Heinrich Boell Stiftung, 2020).
Aufderheide, Patricia, and Peter Jaszi, Reclaiming Fair Use: How to Put Balance Back in Copyright (University of Chicago Press, 2011).
Benkler, Yochai, The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom (Yale University Press, 2006).
Bollier, David, Brand Name Bullies: The Quest to Own and Control Culture ( John Wiley, 2005).
———, Viral Spiral: How the Commoners Built a Digital Republic of Their Own (New Press, 2009).
Boyle, James, The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind (Yale University Press, 2008).
Gerhardt, Hannes, From Capital to Commons: Exploring a World of Promise Beyond Capitalism (Bristol University Press, 2023).
Giblin, Rebecca, and Cory Doctorow, Chokepoint Capitalism (Beacon Press, 2022).
Krikorian, Gaëlle, and Amy Kapczynski, Access to Knowledge in the Age of Intellectual Property (Zone Books, 2010).
Patry, William, Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars (Oxford University Press, 2009).
Schneider, Nathan, Governable Spaces: Democratic Design for Online Life (University of California Press, 2024).
Suber, Peter, Open Access (MIT Press, 2012).
Ackerman, Frank, and Lisa Heinzerling, Priceless: On Knowing the Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing (New Press, 2004).
Alexander, Gregory S., Commodity and Propriety: Competing Visions of Property in American Legal Thought, 1776–1970 (University of Chicago Press, 1997).
Barnes, Peter, Ours: The Case for Universal Property (Polity, 2021). Brown, Michael F., Who Owns Native Culture? (Harvard University Press, 2003).
Fraser, Nancy, Cannibal Capitalism (Verso, 2022).
Freyfogle, Eric T., The Land We Share: Private Property and the Common Good (Island Press, 2003).
Harvey, David, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford University Press, 2005).
Heller, Michael, The Gridlock Economy: How Too Much Ownership Wrecks Markets, Stops Innovation and Costs Lives (Basic Books, 2008).
Hickel, Jason, Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World (Heinemann, 2020).
Kuttner, Robert, Everything for Sale: The Virtues and Limits of Markets (Knopf, 1997).
Radin, Margaret Jane, Contested Commodities (Harvard University Press, 1996).
Raworth, Kate, Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist (Chelsea Green, 2018).
Rose, Carol M., Property and Persuasion: Essays on the History, Theory and Rhetoric of Ownership (Westview Press, 1994).
Steinberg, Theodore, Slide Mountain, or the Folly of Owning Nature (University of California Press, 1995).
Patel, Raj, The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy (Picador, 2009).
Peñalver, Eduardo Moises, and Sonia K. Katyal, Property Outlaws: How Squatters, Pirates and Protesters Improve the Law of Ownership (Yale University Press, 2010).
Sandel, Michael, What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets (Allen Lane, 2012).
Santos, Boaventura de Sousa, The End of Cognitive Empire: The Coming of Age of Epistemologies of the South (Duke University Press, 2018).
Standing, Guy, Plunder of the Commons: A Manifesto for Sharing Public Wealth (Pelican, 2019).
Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt, The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins (Princeton, 2015).
Berry, Thomas, The Dream of the Earth (Counterpoint, 2002/2015). Escobar, Gustavo, and Madhu Suri Prakash, et al., Grassroots Post-modernism: Remaking the Soil of Cultures (1998).
Harvey, Graham, The Handbook of Contemporary Animism (Routledge, 2015).
Yunkaporta, Tyson, Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World (HarperOne, 2021).
Lent, Jeremy, The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe (New Society Publishers, 2021).
Machado de Oliveira, Vanessa, Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity’s Wrongs and the Implications for Social Action (North Atlantic Books, 2021).
Penniman, Leah, ed., Black Earth Wisdom: Soulful Conversations with Black Environmentalists (Amistad, 2023).
Tănăsescu, Mihnea, Ecocene Politics (Open Book Publishers, 2022), www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0274
Topa, Wahinkpe (Four Arrows), and Darcia Narvaez, Restoring the Kinship Worldview: Indigenous Voices Introduce 28 Precepts for Rebalancing Life on Planet Earth (North Atlantic Books, 2022).
Federici, Silvia, Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation (Autonomedia, 2004).
Gurney, John, Gerrard Winstanley: The Digger’s Life and Legacy (Pluto Press, 2013).
Hill, Christopher, The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution (Penguin, 1972).
Hyde, Lewis, Common as Air: Revolution, Imagination and Ownership (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2010).
Linebaugh, Peter, The Magna Carta Manifesto: Liberties and Commons for All (University of California Press, 2008).
Polanyi, Karl, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (Beacon Press, 1944, 1957).
Wall, Derek, The Commons in History: Culture, Conflict and Ecology (Routledge, 2014).
Digital Library of the Commons
Foundation for Ecological Security (India)
Institute for Political Ecology (Croatia)
Institutions for Collective Action (Netherlands)
Int’l Assn for Study of the Commons
Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance
There are many websites purporting to be engaged in commoning that are actually just businesses, consulting firms, apartment complexes, and restaurants! See this sampling of amusing photos compiled by Danny Spitzer.
David Bollier at david /at/ bollier.org | New Society Publishers