Building the commons economy
Lowimpact.org are working closely with Mutual Credit Services, the Credit Commons Society, Island Power and Local Loop North West to help build commons institutions / a new, commons economy. New ideas are emerging that are summarised here. These new ideas allow us to take infrastructure into common ownership without incurring debt – which I think is the main reason that (much as we… Continue reading Building the commons economy Read more
History of commoning
Most of people’s needs through (pre)history have probably been met through commons, and an estimated 2 billion people today depend for at least part of their livelihood on resources held in common. Read more
Garrett Hardin vs Elinor Ostrom
Garret Hardin became infamous for promulgating his view of commons as ‘a tragedy’. Elinor Ostrom’s painstaking research shows him to be unhelpfully mistaken in his perception. Read more
Enclosure, and how to prevent it
Preventing and ending enclosure is a core commitment of commoning. Read more
Co-ops and commoning
A co-op is a commons of ownership and thus will by definition have some kind of democratic stewardship machinery. But formal ownership and the right to enjoy benefits of ownership are not the same as stewardship and curating: fundamental dimensions of commoning. Read more
Natural commoning: land and ‘wild commons’
If there are people whose subsistence is threatened, support them – join Survival International. Read more
Economic commoning
Join credit unions and mutual-credit associations. Participate in local currencies and timebanks. Conventional banks have been given a state monopoly on the creation of money-as-debt, with compound interest attached. You couldn’t invent a system that concentrates wealth and damages nature more, if you tried. Read more
Cultural commoning
Exercise and cultivate the common capacities of people to know, to do and to organise, which have been enclosed by regimes of wage-work and professionalised authority. Read more
Digital commons
Software code, algorithm-steered systems, digital media, etc constitute a prominent present-day still-emergent kind of material that can be commoned. Read more
Internet / web commoning
The world wide web could have been a commons, and lots of people who work in the software and web sphere remain committed to the principles of P2P-commons in software code, digital data and digital processing capacity. Read more
Enclosing digital commons
Microsoft enclosed an emergent software code commons: GitHub. Read more
Commoning social media, tools, platforms
Facebook is not commoning, and is not costless. It’s a way for a giant corporation to pump value out of your traffic and unselfconscious gossip, for profit, surveillance and Big Brother manipulation of your buying (or voting, or social ‘othering’) behaviour. Read more
