Think Like a Commoner

174 Pages·2009·1.16 MB·English

by  David Bollier

Praise for Think Like a Commoner
The Commons is among the most important and hopeful concepts of our time,
and once you’ve read this book you’ll understand why!
—Bill McKibben, author Deep Economy
Think Like a Commoner is a brilliant, accessible, practical, path-breaking
intellectual tour de force. A defining contribution to the New Economy
movement and an essential read for everyone who cares about the human future.
I expect to return to it as a basic reference for years to come.
—David Korten, author, Agenda for a New Economy, board chair YES!
Magazine, and co-chair, New Economy Working Group
The commons is truly the new paradigm, the missing third link for the reform of
civilization. But the commons is not a thing, but above all the expression of a
cultural revolution and of subjective changes. David Bollier has done a great job
of explaining the importance of this great cultural shift.
—Michel Bauwens, Founder, Foundation for Peer-to-Peer Alternatives
Our world is in need of reviving an ancient wisdom if it is to survive. David
Bollier has a beautiful, bold but practical vision for our commons future and
lights the path forward. I love this book!
—Maude Barlow, National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians;
international water activist
It probably surprises you to know that the wealth we own together as a commons
is far more valuable than the wealth that we and corporations own separately.
Corporations know this and have commercialized or taken control of what we
the people own – such as the public airwaves, the public lands, our genes and
trillions of dollars of knowledge (eg. research and development) paid for by
taxpayers – for starters. For this and more you must read Bollier’s brilliant
distillation of the huge variety of commons and how we can take control of what
we own in order to transform our economy for us, our posterity and the planet.
Once you pick it up, you’ll tremble with the excitement of what we all own in
the form of the commons that somehow escaped our notice in our years of
formal education.
——Ralph Nader, Consumer advocate and author, Unstoppable: The Emerging
Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State

Copyright © 2014 by David Bollier. All rights reserved.
This book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 license. See
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.
For more information, including citations and recommended readings for each chapter, go to
thinklikeacommoner.com
Cover design by Diane McIntosh. Illustration © iStock (ARTQC).
First printing January 2014.
New Society Publishers acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada through the
Canada Book Fund (CBF)for our publishing activities.
should be addressed to New Society Publishers at the address below.
To order directly from the publishers, please call toll-free (North America) 1-800-567-6772, or order online
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Any other inquiries can be directed by mail to:
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LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION
Bollier, David, author
Think like a commoner : a short introduction to the life of
the commons / David Bollier.
Includes index.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-0-86571-768-8 (pbk.).—ISBN 978-1-55092-559-3 (ebook)
1. Public goods.2.Commons. 3.Capitalism. I.Title.
HB846.5.B64 2014306.3C2013-907692-1
C2013-907693-X
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For Jonathan Rowe (1946–2011), whose beautifully insightful writings about the
mysteries of the commons remain an inspiration.
CONTENTS
Introduction
1.The Rediscovery of the Commons
2.The Tyranny of the “Tragedy” Myth
3.Enclosure and the Commons
4.Enclosures of Public Spaces and Infrastructure
5.Enclosures of Knowledge and Culture
6.The Eclipsed History of the Commons
7.The Empire of Private Property
8.The Rise of Digital Commons
9.Many Galaxies of Commons
10.The Commons as a Different Way of Seeing and Being
11.The Future of the Commons
The Commons, Short and Sweet
The Logic of the Market and the Commons
Further Reading on the Commons
Leading Websites on the Commons
Acknowledgments
Index
About the Author
INTRODUCTION
W
HEN MY SEATMATE on the airplane turned to me and abruptly asked,
“So what do you do?” I replied that I study the commons and work as an activist
to try to protect it.
Polite bewilderment. “Say what?” It was not the first time. So I cited the
familiar references — the Boston Common and medieval pastures — and moved
on to the so-called tragedy of the commons, the meme that brainwashed a
generation of undergraduates.
Sensing a quiver of interest, I ventured further, mentioning open source
software, Wikipedia and Creative Commons licenses. At the risk of
overwhelming my captive seatmate, I ticked off a list of commons that are rarely
seen as commons: the vast public lands containing minerals and forests, the
broadcast airwaves that TV stations use for free, urban spaces, the human
genome. I mentioned the wonderful community festivals in my hometown, the
“gift economies” of blood donation systems and the commons of language itself
— a resource that is free to anyone to use, but whose letters and words are fast
becoming proprietary trademarks. Then there are the fisheries, farmland and
water that an estimated two billion people around the world manage as commons
to meet their everyday needs.
I half expected my new friend to turn back to her book or gaze out the
window at the fleecy clouds over the Great Plains. Instead she brightened. “Oh, I
get it! The commons are things that no one owns and are shared by everyone.”
Well put.
She mused that the park where she walks her dog and mingles with strangers
is a commons — and so is the online listserv about parenting that she belongs to.