[P2P-F] Fwd: Book of the Day: Think Like a Commoner

Wed Aug 20 16:49:22 CEST 2014

Dear friends,

i love the contributions of hartsellml. You think, David Bollier is 
working for the commons?

No. You see, he want to sell his books only. Try to find a free access 
to his writing. He use the commons resource, our discussion, our 
visions, our doing, our history to make a private buisness with his 
description.

many greetings, willi

-------- Weitergeleitete Nachricht --------
Betreff: Book of the Day: Think Like a Commoner
Datum: 	 Tue, 19 Aug 2014 16:35:36 PDT
Von: 	 hartsellml

Book of the Day: Think Like a Commoner

** Book: Think Like a Commoner
<http://www.newsociety.com/Books/T/Think-Like-a-Commoner>. A Short
Introduction to the Life of the Commons by David Bollier. New Society, 2014*

*Description from the publisher*:

*From the publisher*:

“The biggest “tragedy of the commons” is the misconception that commons
are failures – relics from another era rendered unnecessary by the
Market and State. Think Like a Commoner dispels such prejudices by
explaining the rich history and promising future of the commons – an
ageless paradigm of cooperation and fairness that is re-making our world.

With graceful prose and dozens of fascinating stories, Bollier describes
the quiet revolution that is pioneering practical forms of
self-governance and production controlled by people themselves.

Think Like a Commoner explains how the commons:

   * Is an exploding field of DIY innovation ranging from Wikipedia and
     seed-sharing to community forests and collaborative consumption, and
     beyond

   * Challenges the standard narrative of market economics by explaining
     how cooperation generates significant value and human fulfillment

   * Provides a framework of law and social action that can help us move
     beyond the pathologies of neoliberal capitalism.

We have a choice: Ignore the commons and suffer the ongoing private
plunder of our common wealth. Or Think Like a Commoner and learn how to
rebuild our society and reclaim our shared inheritance. This accessible,
comprehensive introduction to the commons will surprise and enlighten
you, and provoke you to action.”
(http://www.newsociety.com/Books/T/Think-Like-a-Commoner)

*Excerpted from an interview of the author conducted by Jessica Conrad*:

“*Jessica Conrad*: *What inspired you to write Thinking Like a Commoner?*

*David Bollier*: I was inspired to write the book because I kept
encountering people who wanted to learn about the commons and its
significance, yet the only literature I could point them to was either
Elinor Ostrom’s academic writing—which is insightful but also dense and
not necessarily accessible to the layperson—or issue-specific,
theoretical political writing, such as Marxist analysis. There wasn’t a
book I could give to my mother or to a college freshman or to my friends
that offered an easy introduction to the commons. I’ve been studying and
thinking about the commons for about fifteen years, and I decided it was
time for me to try to give a succinct overview of the commons in
layperson’s language.

*Jessica Conrad: You describe the commons as an “exploding field of DIY
innovation ranging from Wikipedia and seed-sharing to community forests
and collaborative consumption.” Can you elaborate on your definition?*

*David Bollier*: The question “What is the commons?” implies that the
commons is a unitary thing, but it’s a cultural abstraction just like
the market or GDP, neither of which really exist. They are social
constructions. We simply agree to talk about certain social activities
in a certain way. The market, for example, includes everything from Wall
Street to a hardware store to a lemonade stand.

Similarly, the commons is an umbrella term for a paradigm of social
behavior and activity that involves self-organized governance and a
self-provisioning of resources that tend to be local and specific. There
isn’t a universal inventory of commons; instead there are countless
commons. When a group of people identifies a resource and says “We want
to manage and steward this resource collectively for the benefit of
all,” that’s how a commons gets created.

So the commons is not just a resource. It’s a resource plus the social
community that manages it and the rules, values, and practices that are
used. All of this means that commons vary immensely across the world.
But of course that’s what makes them so durable and hardy. They adapt to
their locality, ecosystem, resource, and culture.

Circling back to the market, it’s controversial whether the commons can
coexist with the market. I personally think they can, but the people who
are involved in the commons must take great pains to ensure that the
market doesn’t prey upon and destroy the commons. In other words, the
temptation to monetize our relationships and resources tends to destroy
the social solidarity and collective stewardship of a resource. So there
needs to be certain social understandings or technological systems or
legal protections to ensure that a commons remains a commons.

There are a lot of models—new and old—in the so-called sharing economy
where people meet their needs through the market: local food systems,
community-supported agriculture, Airbnb, Lyft, Uber, and so on. Some
people think the latter three examples belong instead to a micro-rental
economy, while others believe those services still require social
cooperation. Either way, I think the more important question is whether
or not the commons can continue to be a commons. Can it protect itself
as a social organism and reproduce itself? When Airbnb, Lyft, or Uber
users start to behave as consumers and producers rather than collective
managers of the resource, that is the beginning of the end of the commons.

*Jessica Conrad: Was there a time when the commons were more visibly
central to human life?*

*David Bollier*: I think the commons has been central to life for most
of human existence. Only in the last two hundred years or so has the
market essentially emancipated itself from social community, kinship,
morality, and religion—and more recently, from political accountability.
The Great Transformation, by Karl Polanyi, is a landmark book on this
topic. It talks about how the market became the universal ordering
principle for society after the industrial revolution.

In some ways the contemporary commons movement is trying to recover a
way of life that existed before industrialization, which, not
coincidentally, emphasizes provisioning for basic needs (as opposed to
profit), a rough social equity, and limits on the exploitation of nature.

*Jessica Conrad: What caused us to lose sight of the commons?*

*David Bollier*: As the market culture became more and more dominant,
especially during the Reagan-Thatcher era of the 1980s, we started to
lose the language of the commons. The business world has made a
concerted effort to assert market-friendly interpretations of the world,
versus ones that help us remember the importance of the commons. This
ranges from aggressive propagandizing for free markets to the
privatization of government and civil infrastructure to the corporate
naming of beloved stadia and public spaces. Businesses often perceive
the commons as posing a very serious threat to business investment
interests. That’s why we’re seeing an attack on sharing. But business
almost always resists changes that might disrupt existing markets and
revenue flows, even if the eventual result is more socially benign or
economically constructive.

The two major political parties in the US also have little interest in
talking about the commons because it might jeopardize their cozy
relationships with business interests. And there is a lot of money to be
made by enclosing our shared wealth, whether it is the Internet, public
lands, federal drug research, or the human genome.

**Jessica Conrad*: Why is it essential that we begin to see the commons
and think like commoners today?*

*David Bollier*: It’s partly about recovering our humanity. Simply put,
the market culture—in which we assume the role of selfish,
utility-maximizing individuals—is incredibly alienating and makes us
unhappy. It also has some profoundly harmful consequences for the planet
and our social lives and democracy.

We need to relearn and reeducate ourselves about what it means to be in
relationship to one another and to the world. The commons helps us do
that—while providing a framework for new policy and technology that will
enable those essential social relationships to flourish again.

*Jessica Conrad: What do you see as the greatest challenge to helping
people see the commons and think like commoners?*

*David Bollier*: That’s a good question because you can’t just write a
book and expect a social revolution. Helping people understand the
commons will involve a process of engagement and exposure to commons in
different types of contexts. During the civil rights movement, people
gathered in church basements. In the early days of the women’s movement,
“consciousness raising sessions” were an important vehicle for personal
engagement. I’m not quite sure what the vehicles will be for the commons
movement, but we need to start engaging people in a respectful,
collaborative process so that we can better protect the shared wealth
that we love. My immodest hope, of course, is that my book will
contribute to the process.

*Jessica Conrad: What is the greatest opportunity for helping people see
the commons and think like commoners?*

*David Bollier*: The most accessible example to my mind is the Internet
because digital culture is so hospitable to commoning. This is made
evident by the wide diversity of Internet-based commons, including
open-source software, Wikipedia, open-access publishing, various social
media platforms. The list goes on. The Internet is one promising place
where I think commons culture can start to crystallize itself.

However, I also think there are lots of opportunities for learning
internationally. The people of Greece and Madrid, for example, or those
from the Arab Spring and Occupy, all had or have similar grievances with
their governments. They all believe that genuine democracy is
missing—that supposedly democratic, representative government is a sham.

The commons is a source of hope because provides a different mode of
real, participatory governance as opposed to centralized, hierarchical,
corporate-controlled government. The commons also has huge potential for
meeting people’s needs more effectively. People around the world are
starting to discover this fact, or to associate “the commons” with
existing forms of commoning, such as that done by indigenous peoples.

*Jessica Conrad: If you could suggest one strategy or tactic for helping
people begin to shift to a commons-based worldview, what would it be?*

*David Bollier*: It has to start with your passions and talents. No
commons functions well without a certain level of care and engagement.
If you happen to love the natural world, perhaps you should put your
energy into land trusts or open-space preservation. Or if you’re
digitally savvy, there are all sorts of online commons you can
participate in. It all starts with the desire to protect a resource that
matters to you. The other important piece is to learn the language of
the commons, which helps us see that all of our commons projects, no
matter how small or seemingly isolated, are related. This can provide
the basis for new forms of social solidarity, despite national
boundaries and other differences among us.”
(http://www.shareable.net/blog/new-book-inspires-us-to-think-like-a-commoner)

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