From P2P Foundation

= What we share. Creations of both nature and society that belong to all of us equally, and should be maintained for future generations. The Commons has the potential to replace the commodity as the determining form of re-/producing societal living conditions. Such a replacement can only occur, if communities constitute themselves for every aspect of life, in order to take „their“ commons back and to reintegrate them into a new need-focused logic of re-/production. [1]

This new section exclusively devoted to the emergence of Commons in various fields.

• Most commons fall into three general categories – gifts of nature, material creations, and intangible creations (i.e. the Three Commons. [2]. Here are the Four Rules against the False Abundance of the Eternal Growth Economy.

• Introduction by Paul Hartzog: Defining the Global Commons

• In politics: Mapping a Coalition for the Commons. By Philippe Aigrain.

Contents 1 Introduction 2 Key Upcoming Commons Events 3 Visualization 3.1 Twelve Key Assets of Ogallala Commons 3.2 Charlotte Hess: Mapping the New Commons 3.3 The Logic of the Market versus the Logic of the Commons 4 Typology 4.1 Typology of Commons Regulation 5 Examples 6 Citations 6.1 Sam Rose on Transition Economics 6.2 Neoliberalism as the Anti-Commons 6.3 The commons vs. commoditization 6.4 Humanity is just a steward 6.5 Land and Labor cannot be commodities, they are commons 7 Key Resources 7.1 Key Articles 7.2 Key Blogs 7.3 Key Books 7.3.1 On Commons Economics 7.4 Key Conferences 7.5 Key Essays 7.6 Key Events 7.7 Key Organizations 7.8 Key Podcasts 7.9 Key Policy Proposals 7.10 Key Videos 8 Commons Encyclopedia

Introduction

• Key Article from James Quilligan: Beyond State Capitalism The Commons Economy in our Lifetimes.[3]

• James Quilligan:

"Our global economic system is now in grave crisis, threatening the entire planet, its institutions and species.

A new kind of common wealth is needed to protect the assets of Earth, resolve our private and public debts, and create a global society of justice, sharing and sustainability for everyone.

Our commons are the collective heritage of humanity — the shared resources of nature and society that we inherit, create and use. People across the world are now rediscovering these common goods and choosing to protect them for future generations.

Whether our commons are traditional (rivers, forests, indigenous cultures) or emerging (solar energy, intellectual property, internet), communities are managing them through unique forms of self-governance, collaboration and collective action. And in working together to preserve these resources, we are generating new standards of responsibility, mutual aid and sustenance for all beings.

Global Commons Trust promotes the creation of trusteeships, where the rights to our commons may be realized for the benefit of all." (http://globalcommonstrust.org/)

• Key concepts [4] for a Global Common Wealth: 1) The Commons FAQ ; 2) The Commons Trusts FAQ; the Social Charters FAQ

1. Is there a difference between the Common and the Public?
2. Introduction to the Commons, the Tragedy of the Commons and the Tragedy of the Tragedy of the Commons
3. The Commons - Typology of Stefan Meretz; Ten Theses About Global Commons Movement
4. Establishing Global Commons Trust , Global Common Goods and a Commons Reserve Currency
5. The Co-Governance and Co-Production of the Commons through Commons Trusts on the basis of Social Charters
6. Replacing the scarcity-engineering of capitalist markets by the abundance engineering of the commons, see the Abundance - Typology and the Wealth Typology
7. Introduction to Commons-centered economics. By Sam Rose, Paul Hartzog et al.
8. Ryan Lanham proposes a set of P2P Commons Boundary Conditions
9. In this article on Use Communities, Alex Steffen argues that sharing infrastructures are vital for sustainability
10. Darryl Birkenfield: What is the Meaning of Being a Commoner?

Key Upcoming Commons Events

• Making Worlds OWS Forum on the Commons‎ to be organized in NYC, February 16-18, 2012

• Second meeting of the European Charter of the Commons Campaign, in Rome, Feb 10-12th: European Forum on Income, Common Goods and Democracy

• Green European Foundation Conference on the Commons‎

Visualization

Twelve Key Assets of Ogallala Commons

• Source: http://www.onthecommons.org/stem-cord-web-relationships

Charlotte Hess: Mapping the New Commons

• Source: Hess, Charlotte, Mapping the New Commons (July 1, 2008).

The Logic of the Market versus the Logic of the Commons

	Market	Commons
Focus	What can I sell?Exchange value	What do we need?Use value
Core beliefs	Scarcity	Plenty
	Homo oeconomicus	Homo cooperans
	It's about resources (allocation).	It's about us.
Governance	Market-State	Polycentric / Peer-to-Peer Governance
Decision making	hierarchical	horizontal
	Command (Power, Law, Violence)	Consensus, Free Cooperation, self-organization
Social relationships	Centralization of power (monopoly)	Decentralization of power(autonomy)
	Property	Possession
Access to rival resources	Limited by boundaries & rules defined by owner	Limited by boundaries & rules defined by usergroups
Access to nonrival resources	Made scarce (to ensure profitability)	Open access (to ensure social equity)
Use rights	Granted by owner	Co-decided by user groups
Dominant strategy	Out-compete	Out-cooperate
Results
For the resources	ErosionEnclosure	Conservation Reproduction & Multiplication
For the people	Exlusion & Participation	Inclusion & Emancipation

• Source: The Commons: Year One of the Global Commons Movement by Silke Helfrich (29. Januar 2011)

• A similar comparative table is here

Typology

1. See also: Commons - Typology

2. Michel Bauwens, a threefold typology of the commons:

1. Inherited Commons – e.g. earth, water, forests – are heavily under attack and becoming scarce commons. It doesn't have to be this way i.e. in Switzerland, Austria, Japan they are well managed under an agricultural commons, and have been protected for hundreds of years by good collective arrangements between the farmers.

2. Immaterial Commons – e.g. Cultural, intellectual, enabled by the internet, makes it stronger and easier to do than before. Commoning in this sense can be abstract but when we do it around something we care about, whether its free software, open design or wikipedia this really creates a community of shared interest because its something that we all care about.

3. Material Commons – that we which we co create e.g. common stock, common machinery. Think of zip-car, owned by a company but why not have the community own it. Then there is the Commons Car, claimed to be the first open source car, now one of many such projects." (http://www.schoolofcommoning.com/content/school-spreads-its-wings-graceful-inaugural-flight-sets-successful-precedence)

3. From James Bernard Quilligan in People Sharing Resources" [5]

• Noosphere : indigenous culture and traditions, community support systems, social connectedness, voluntary associations,

labor relations, women and children's rights, family life, health, education, sacredness, religions and ethnicity, racial values, silence, creative works, languages, stores of human knowledge and wisdom, scientific knowledge, ethnobotanical knowledge, ideas, intellectual property, information, communication flows, airwaves, internet, free culture, cultural treasures, music, arts, purchasing power, the social right to issue money, security, risk management

• Biosphere : fisheries, agriculture, forests, land, pastures, ecosystems, parks, gardens, seeds, food crops, genetic life

forms and species, living creatures

• Physiosphere : the elements, minerals, inorganic energy,water, climate, atmosphere, stratosphere

3. Sam Rose and Paul Hartzog offer the following typology for Commons based on different distributed infrastructures:

• Energy Commons
• Food Commons
• Thing Commons
• Cultural Commons
• Access Commons

4. Seven Policy Switches By James Greyson

Typology of Commons Regulation

things	Access	Regulation
Res nullius	all	non-regulated
Res privatae	owner	market-regulated
Res publicae	public	state-regulated
Res communes	community	peer-regulated

• Source: The Commons: Year One of the Global Commons Movement by Silke Helfrich (29. Januar 2011)

Examples

See also: David Bollier maintains an updated list of Commons-oriented projects.

Here are our articles on domain-specific commons:

Physical Commons:

1. Atmosphere Commons ; Atmospheric Commons
2. Energy Commons ; Energy from the Perspective of the Commons‎
3. Environmental Commons
4. Food Commons ; Food as Common and Community
5. Hunting Commons
6. Infrastructure Commons; see also: Developing the Meta Services for the Eco-Social Economy
7. Land as Commons
8. Marine Commons
9. Microbial Commons
10. Petroleum Commons
11. Solar Commons
12. Water Commons

Knowledge/Culture Commons:

1. Aesthetic Commons [6]
2. Book Commons
3. Communication Commons
4. Cultural Commons [7]
5. Digital Commons
6. Educational Commons
7. FLOSS Commons: see FLOSS as Commons
8. Genome Commons
9. Global Innovation Commons
10. Global Integral-Spiritual Commons
11. History Commons
12. Information Commons ; Information as a Common-Pool Resource
13. Knowledge Commons ; Knowledge as a Commons
14. Learning Commons
15. Libraries as Commons
16. Media Commons
17. Medical and Health Commons
18. Museum as Commons
19. Music Commons
20. Open Education Commons
21. Open Scientific Software Commons ; Open Source Science Commons
22. Patent Commons ; Eco-Patent Commons
23. Psychological Commons

Institutional Commons:

1. Employment as a Common Pool Resource
2. Financial Commons
3. Global Legal Commons
4. Household as Commons
5. Infrastructure Commons
6. Internet Commons
7. Labor Commons
8. Market Commons
9. Neighborhood Commons
10. NonProfit Commons
11. Taxes as Commons
12. Thing Commons
13. Urban Commons
14. Wireless Commons

Citations

Sam Rose on Transition Economics

"Where people work together to both share those resources that are shareable now (software, designs, knowledge, waste that can be used as food, surplus capacities and resources) and cooperate to produce items that are still based in scarcity, then re-invest the profits into creating more and more abundance-economy-based systems."

- See Sam Rose on the need for Cooperative Wealth Building facilitators

Neoliberalism as the Anti-Commons

"As neoliberalism converts every political or social problem into market terms, it converts them to individual problems with market solutions. Examples in the United States are legion: bottled water as a response to contamination of the water table; private schools, charter schools, and voucher systems as a response to the collapse of quality public education; anti-theft devices, private security guards, and gated communities (and nations) as a response to the production of a throwaway class and intensifying economic inequality; boutique medicine as a response to crumbling health care provision; “V-chips” as a response to the explosion of violent and pornographic material on every type of household screen; ergonomic tools and technologies as a response to the work conditions of information capitalism; and, of course, finely differentiated and titrated pharmaceutical antidepressants as a response to lives of meaninglessness or despair amidst wealth and freedom. This conversion of socially, economically, and politically produced problems into consumer items depoliticizes what has been historically produced, and it especially depoliticizes capitalism itself. Moreover, as neoliberal political rationality devolves both political problems and solutions from public to private, it further dissipates political or public life: the project of navigating the social becomes entirely one of discerning, affording, and procuring a personal solution to every socially produced problem. This is depoliticization on an unprecedented level: the economy is tailored to it, citizenship is organized by it, the media are dominated by it, and the political rationality of neoliberalism frames and endorses it.”

- Wendy Brown [8]

The commons vs. commoditization

"The main way in which propaganda has been used to try and dull people's thinking about what water is, what food is, what the land is, is by first and foremost redefining everything that we get from the earth as purely raw materials and commodities. It's a denial of the capacity of human beings, of living resources, of equal systems, which is at the heart of the corporate propaganda that enables privatization, that enables takeover and the creation of property in that which should never be private property, that which should always belong to the commons."

- Vandana Shiva on the commons vs. commoditization [9]

Humanity is just a steward

Even an entire society, a nation, or all simultaneously existing societies taken together, are not the owners of the earth. They are simply its possessors, its beneficiaries, and have to bequeath it in an improved state to succeeding generations as boni patres familias [good heads of the household].

- Marx (http://tiny.cc/xrHUv)

Land and Labor cannot be commodities, they are commons

"As Karl Polanyi (1944: 72) argued, labour and land are “fictitious commodities”, for “labour is only another name for a human activity which goes with life itself… nor can that activity be detached from the rest of life…; land is only another name for nature, which is not produced by man”.

- Karl Polanyi [10]

Key Resources

Graphic: Choosing the Right Form of Common Property

Film: This Land is Our Land. The Fight to Reclaim the Commons. Written by David Bollier et al.

Delicious tag for updates: http://delicious.com/mbauwens/P2P-Commons

Key Articles

For beginners:

• Twelve Benefits of a Commons-Based Approach. By Kevin Hansen, June 2011

Key articles:

• The State, the Market, and some Preliminary Question about the Commons. Ugo Mattei. [11] An absolutely crucial text by Ugo Mattei on how the Western legal tradition needs to be fundamentally overturned in order for the common and the commons to emerge as core principle of a new legal-institutional system.
• Aaron Peters: Establishing a Communication Commons: The other world that we believe is possible will require another media – one that MUST be commons-based. [12]
• Caffentzis, George: A Tale of Two Conferences:Globalization, the Crisis of Neoliberalism and Question of the Commons. [13]
• Maude Barlow: Private Property is Not the Right Solution for the Natural Commons
• Commons as a Challenge for Classical Economics. By the Commons Strategies Group

See also:

1. Top Ten Constituents of New Commons Economy‎
2. Twelve Contemporary Commons Observations‎

Key Blogs

• Commons coverage by the P2P Foundation blog via http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/category/p2p-commons [14]

1. Kim Klein and the Commons
2. On the Commons
3. David Bollier's news and perspectives on the commons

In German:

1. Commons und solidarische Ökonomie
2. Gemeingüter
3. Silke Helfrich's commons blog
4. http://www.keimform.de/ Keimform]

Key Books

1. Christian Siefkes (2007), From Exchange to Contributions: Generalizing Peer Production into the Physical World. [15]: proposal for a commons-based economic system
2. Book: Common as Air. Lewis Hyde. 2010

On specialized commons:

1. The Common Thread. By John Sulston: a nuanced defense of treating knowledge of the genome as a commons.
2. Genes, Bytes and Emissions: To Whom Does the World Belong? Ed. by Silke Helfrich. Heinrich Boll Foundation, 2009 Intro ; Online version
3. On the Water Commons: Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop Corporate Theft of the World’s Water. By Maude Barlow.the Water Commons
4. Common Cause. Information Between Commons and Property. Philippe Aigrain. [16] Unpubished, select version of: Cause Commune.

On Commons Economics

1. Enrico Grazzini. The Good of Everyone. The Sharing Economy as a Way Out of the Crisis (Editori Internazionali Riuniti, 2011)
2. Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth Juliet B. Schor
3. Wolfgang Hoeschele. The [[Economics of Abundance[[: A Political Economy of Freedom, Equity, and Sustainability. Gower Publishing, 2010

Key Conferences

• Making Worlds OWS Forum on the Commons‎ to be organized in NYC, February 16-18, 2012

• European Charter of the Commons Campaign. Second Meeting planned in Rome for Feb 11th

• 17th General Meeting of the Common(s) Core of European Private Law 2011, [17]: In the wake of urgent global challenges to both the European Union and the global system, here we are particularly interested in opening the Common Core Project as a platform for exploring the extent to which the comparative law model offers space for understanding and advancing the ‘Commons’.

Key Essays

Introductory article:

• Four conditions for successful commons. by Mark van Vugt: "I have identified four key conditions for the successful management of shared environmental resources: information, identity, institutions and incentives. I believe we can and should use this 4i framework as the basis for a plan of action to combat local and global environmental catastrophe."

Major essays:

1. Christian Siefkes (2009), The Commons of the Future. Building Blocks for a Commons-based Society.
2. The Circulation of the Common = Analytical concept proposed by Nick Dyer-Witheford related to the reproduction of the commons [18]
3. Information as a Common-Pool Resource. Charlotte Hess and Elinor Ostrom. 66 Law & Contemp. Probs. 111, Winter-Spring 2003. [19]: a paper contextualizing knowledge commons and the study of other commons
4. Global Commons and Common Sense. Jorge Buzaglo. real-world economics review, issue no. 51 [20] : policy proposals for a global governance of planetary commons
5. The Common in Commonism. Michael Hardt looks at what Marx had to say about the common. [21]
6. A typology for managing common resources: Wolfgang Hoeschele on Contributory Resource Use
7. The Five Commons - ( http://forwardfound.org/blog/?q=five-commons ) a “minimally necessary” set of practices to achieve a sustainable society.

Also:

1. Philippe Aigrain: The Reinvention of the Commons in the Information Age (french)

Manifesto's:

1. Strengthen the Commons Now!

Special Authors:

• James Quilligan

1. People Sharing Resources. Toward a New Multilateralism of the Global Commons. James Bernard Quilligan Kosmos Journal, Fall | Winter 2009: this article frames what a global commons-based policy and governance structure should be.
2. James Quilligan: Toward a Commons-based Framework for Global Negotiations

Special Topics:

1. Aesthetic Commons and the Enclosures of Instituting Autonomies. By Jordi Claramonte. [22]
2. Denis Postle: Psychological Commons, Peer to Peer Networks and Post-Professional Psychopractice

Key Events

• International Commons Conference, “Constructing a Commons-Based Policy Platform,” Berlin, Germany, on November 1 and 2, 2010. Working document: Berlin Commons Conference

• World Commons Day, October 15, 2010.

Key Organizations

1. On The Commons]

Key Podcasts

• The Commons Podcast Series: podcasts accompagnying the syllabus by David Bollier, "The Rise of the Commons,"

1. Property, Commons, and The Gift Economy: provides an overview of the philsophy behind private property rights, the fallacies of the "tragedy of the commons," and the moral and social dynamics of gift-exchange within communities. download
2. History of Commons and Enclosure: A review of medieval commons, Peter Linebaugh's history of Magna Carta, and Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation.download
3. Dynamics of Modern Enclosure and Governing the Commons: A survey of modern enclosures as described by Bollier in Silent Theft; the human implicatiions of making resources alienable for market use; and an introduction to Elinor Ostrom's Governing the Commons. download
4. Land as a Commons and Water as a Commons: A look at property rights as applied to land and water, and how certain commons-based approaches such as New Mexican acequias avoid the adverse consequences of market enclosure. Readings by Eric Freyfogle, Maude Barlow, Adam Davidson-Harden and Jose A. Rivera. download
5. Atmosphere and Commons Trusts: Peter Barnes has been a pioneering thinker about how stakeholder trusts might be used to manage the atmosphere more equitably and effectively. Readings from Barnes' Who Owns the Sky? and Capitalism 3.0: A Guide to Reclaiming the Commons. download
6. Second Enclosure Movement, Copyright, Trademarks and Patents: The copyright wars against the public domain and fair use have been raging for more than 20 years now. A review of its harm to culture and its general dynamics. Readings by William Patry, David Bollier, and James Beesen/Michael J. Meurer download
7. Internet as a Super-Commons: The end-to-end principles of the Internet and its shared protocols constitute a vital infrastructure for creating countless online commons. This lecture gives a brief overview of this history, with readings by Lawrence Lessig, Richard Stallman, Eben Moglen, David Bollier, Elinor Ostrom and Charlotte Hess. download
8. New Genres of Collaborative Creativity and the Economics of Online Sharing: The Internet infrastructure, the GPL for software and the Creative Commons licenses have enabled the rise of rich new genres of collaborative creativity, from shared archives and wikis to remix music and the blogosphere. This lecture looks at the "Great Value Shift" catalyzed by distributed media, with readings by Yochai Benkler, Michel Bauwens, David Bollier. download
9. Academia as a Commons: One of the more troubling market enclosures of the past generation is the croporate colonization of academia and its research. We review Jennifer Washburn's University Inc., and selected chapters from Bollier's Silent Theft and Viral Spiral. download

Key Policy Proposals

• Securing the Commons. By Ruth Meinzen-Dick, Esther Mwangi, and Stephan Dohrn. CAPRi Policy Brief 4. [23]
• Developing the Meta Services for the Eco-Social Economy: on developing a framework for an eco-social economy - includings its arrangements to manage natural commons. Text proposed by Feasta, Ireland. By Brian Davey with the assistance of John Jopling.

Key Videos

Introductions:

1. The Commons Video replaces the Story of Stuff with the Story of Sharing! [24]
2. What are the Commons, "does a good job of defining the commons and explaining why they're essential, whether digital or physical". [25]
3. The Remix the Commons Video Series [26]

Lectures:

1. Anthony McCann on the Enclosure of the Information Commons
2. Brewster Kahle on Universal Access to All Knowledge
3. Business Models for the Commons
4. Emer O'Siochru on Reclaiming the Commons
5. Eben Moglen on the Commons as an Actor in Transforming the Global Political Economy

All videos of the 2010 Berlin Commons Conference are presented via this consolidated link at http://www.boell.de/economysocial/economy/economy-commons-10451.html

1. Roberto Verzola and Stefan Meretz on the Generative Logic of the Commons‎
2. Multilateralism 2.0‎;
3. Philippe Aigrain on the Commons as a Challenge for Classic Economic Patterns‎
4. Michel Bauwens: an Overview of the Commons as Transformation Paradigm‎;
5. Ruth Meinzen-Dick: an Overview of the Commons as Transformation Paradigm‎

Commons Encyclopedia

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