The commons
Encyclopedia
The commons is terminology referring to resource
s that are owned in common or shared between or among communities population
s. These resources are said to be "held in common" and can include everything from natural resource
s and common land
to software. The commons contains public property
and private property
, over which people have certain traditional rights. In some areas the process by which commonly held property is transformed into private property is termed enclosure
.
- forests, atmosphere, rivers, fisheries or grazing land - that are shared, used and enjoyed by all.
Today, the commons are also understood within a cultural sphere. These commons include literature, music, arts, design, film, video, television, radio, information, software and sites of heritage. The commons can also include public goods such as public space, public education, health and the infrastructure that allows our society to function (such as electricity or water delivery systems). There also exists the ‘life commons’, e.g. the human genome.
Peter Barnes
describes commons as a set of assets that have
two characteristics: they’re all gifts, and they’re all shared. A shared gift is one we receive as members of a community, as opposed to individually. Examples of such gifts include air, water, ecosystems, languages, music, holidays, money, law, mathematics, parks and the Internet
.
There are a number of important aspects that can be used to describe true commons. The first is that the commons cannot be commodified – and if they are – they cease to be commons. The second aspect is that unlike private property, the commons is inclusive rather than exclusive — its nature is to share ownership as widely, rather than as narrowly, as possible. The third aspect is that the assets in commons are meant to be preserved regardless of their return of capital
. Just as we receive them as shared gifts, so we have a duty to pass them on to future generations in at least the same condition as we received them. If we can add to their value, so much the better, but at a minimum we must not degrade them, and we certainly have no right to destroy them.
The Public commons is commonly referred to as a place in our world that has a public good that is free for people to view and enjoy and owned by everyone who wants to be a part of it. Something as simple as water and grass that you see in the park everyday is a public common. Most times people don’t even realize that when they’re in a park that it is free. However usually in these commons it is patrolled by other people in the area and if someone were to violate the commons in anyway by littering or dumping then it would be up to people in the area to control what happens to their own place.
Some people don’t tend to agree with Peter Barnes
in saying that the commons is all owned by the people because things like public transportation, public education and health care aren’t always available to people. For each of these mentioned things each of them has a “care penalty” in which there is a certain fee or tax to use these things provided by the government. This type of common is provided by a certain infrastructure like the government but to have access to it there is taxes on families and health insurance premiums.
Another highly used public common is the internet. The internet is something many people have access to as a resource and a scholarly tool but is also privatized as well. This type of common is a hybrid. To gain access to the internet a household needs an internet service provider
that they have to pay in order to get online.
There are quite a few different ways to categorize a “common” but there are the public commons like parks, rivers, oceans, mountains and grasslands but there are also the privatized commons that the government provides and lastly the hybrid of the two where the service is free but also privatized by certain groups or individuals.
While use of the commons is generally unrestricted, there have to be certain rules in place to ensure that they are available for future generations. Overuse of the commons threatens their very existence. When considering the commons as an entity used by all, it is easy to see how there are claims that the atmosphere and skies are commons. In that case it is not a matter of what is being taken from the resources, but what is being put into those commons.
Economist Peter Barnes has proposed sky trust to fix this problem. This idea claims that the sky belongs to all the people, and the companies do not have a right to over pollute. It is a type of cap and dividend program. Ultimately the goal would be to make polluting excessively more expensive than cleaning what is being put back into the atmosphere.
Recently technological commons have become more prevalent. The Linux operating system is an open source rival to Windows and Microsoft that allows its users to take and use source code from other creators and modify it themselves. In fact, Wikipedia itself is an open resource, and is an integral part of the information commons. Its users can update and add to any article. There are certain rules associated with these changes and its use, just like any other commons, but for the most part anyone can access it freely.
In some ways, the information commons is required and actually helps protect the community. It is actually required that companies that pollute release information about what they are doing. The Corporate Toxics Information Project and information like the Toxic 100, a list of the top 100 polluters, helps people know what these large corporations are doing to the environment. Having the information open to all, as part of a common network helps ensure the safety and knowledge of anyone who wishes to access it.
is a method of collective responsibility and management for irrigation systems in desert areas. In New Mexico, a community-run organization known as Acequia Associations supervises water in terms of diversion, distribution, utilization, and recycling, in order to reinforce agricultural traditions and preserve water as a common resource for future generations.
Resource
A resource is a source or supply from which benefit is produced, typically of limited availability.Resource may also refer to:* Resource , substances or objects required by a biological organism for normal maintenance, growth, and reproduction...
s that are owned in common or shared between or among communities population
Population
A population is all the organisms that both belong to the same group or species and live in the same geographical area. The area that is used to define a sexual population is such that inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with individuals...
s. These resources are said to be "held in common" and can include everything from natural resource
Natural resource
Natural resources occur naturally within environments that exist relatively undisturbed by mankind, in a natural form. A natural resource is often characterized by amounts of biodiversity and geodiversity existent in various ecosystems....
s and common land
Common land
Common land is land owned collectively or by one person, but over which other people have certain traditional rights, such as to allow their livestock to graze upon it, to collect firewood, or to cut turf for fuel...
to software. The commons contains public property
Public property
Public property is property, which is dedicated to the use of the public. It is a subset of state property. The term may be used either to describe the use to which the property is put, or to describe the character of its ownership...
and private property
Private property
Private property is the right of persons and firms to obtain, own, control, employ, dispose of, and bequeath land, capital, and other forms of property. Private property is distinguishable from public property, which refers to assets owned by a state, community or government rather than by...
, over which people have certain traditional rights. In some areas the process by which commonly held property is transformed into private property is termed enclosure
Enclosure
Enclosure or inclosure is the process which ends traditional rights such as mowing meadows for hay, or grazing livestock on common land. Once enclosed, these uses of the land become restricted to the owner, and it ceases to be common land. In England and Wales the term is also used for the...
.
Concepts
The commons were traditionally defined as the elements of the environmentNatural environment
The natural environment encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth or some region thereof. It is an environment that encompasses the interaction of all living species....
- forests, atmosphere, rivers, fisheries or grazing land - that are shared, used and enjoyed by all.
Today, the commons are also understood within a cultural sphere. These commons include literature, music, arts, design, film, video, television, radio, information, software and sites of heritage. The commons can also include public goods such as public space, public education, health and the infrastructure that allows our society to function (such as electricity or water delivery systems). There also exists the ‘life commons’, e.g. the human genome.
Peter Barnes
Peter Barnes (entrepreneur)
Peter Barnes is an American entrepreneur, environmentalist, and journalist.-Early life:Barnes grew up in New York City. He earned a B.A. in history from Harvard University and an M.A. in government from Georgetown.-Journalist:...
describes commons as a set of assets that have
two characteristics: they’re all gifts, and they’re all shared. A shared gift is one we receive as members of a community, as opposed to individually. Examples of such gifts include air, water, ecosystems, languages, music, holidays, money, law, mathematics, parks and the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
.
There are a number of important aspects that can be used to describe true commons. The first is that the commons cannot be commodified – and if they are – they cease to be commons. The second aspect is that unlike private property, the commons is inclusive rather than exclusive — its nature is to share ownership as widely, rather than as narrowly, as possible. The third aspect is that the assets in commons are meant to be preserved regardless of their return of capital
Return of capital
Return of capital refers to payments back to "capital owners" that exceed the growth of a business. It should not be confused with return on capital which measures a 'rate of return'....
. Just as we receive them as shared gifts, so we have a duty to pass them on to future generations in at least the same condition as we received them. If we can add to their value, so much the better, but at a minimum we must not degrade them, and we certainly have no right to destroy them.
The Public commons is commonly referred to as a place in our world that has a public good that is free for people to view and enjoy and owned by everyone who wants to be a part of it. Something as simple as water and grass that you see in the park everyday is a public common. Most times people don’t even realize that when they’re in a park that it is free. However usually in these commons it is patrolled by other people in the area and if someone were to violate the commons in anyway by littering or dumping then it would be up to people in the area to control what happens to their own place.
Some people don’t tend to agree with Peter Barnes
Peter Barnes
Peter Barnes was an English Olivier Award-winning playwright and screenwriter. His most famous work is the play The Ruling Class, which was made into a 1972 film for which Peter O'Toole received an Oscar nomination....
in saying that the commons is all owned by the people because things like public transportation, public education and health care aren’t always available to people. For each of these mentioned things each of them has a “care penalty” in which there is a certain fee or tax to use these things provided by the government. This type of common is provided by a certain infrastructure like the government but to have access to it there is taxes on families and health insurance premiums.
Another highly used public common is the internet. The internet is something many people have access to as a resource and a scholarly tool but is also privatized as well. This type of common is a hybrid. To gain access to the internet a household needs an internet service provider
Internet service provider
An Internet service provider is a company that provides access to the Internet. Access ISPs directly connect customers to the Internet using copper wires, wireless or fiber-optic connections. Hosting ISPs lease server space for smaller businesses and host other people servers...
that they have to pay in order to get online.
There are quite a few different ways to categorize a “common” but there are the public commons like parks, rivers, oceans, mountains and grasslands but there are also the privatized commons that the government provides and lastly the hybrid of the two where the service is free but also privatized by certain groups or individuals.
While use of the commons is generally unrestricted, there have to be certain rules in place to ensure that they are available for future generations. Overuse of the commons threatens their very existence. When considering the commons as an entity used by all, it is easy to see how there are claims that the atmosphere and skies are commons. In that case it is not a matter of what is being taken from the resources, but what is being put into those commons.
Economist Peter Barnes has proposed sky trust to fix this problem. This idea claims that the sky belongs to all the people, and the companies do not have a right to over pollute. It is a type of cap and dividend program. Ultimately the goal would be to make polluting excessively more expensive than cleaning what is being put back into the atmosphere.
Recently technological commons have become more prevalent. The Linux operating system is an open source rival to Windows and Microsoft that allows its users to take and use source code from other creators and modify it themselves. In fact, Wikipedia itself is an open resource, and is an integral part of the information commons. Its users can update and add to any article. There are certain rules associated with these changes and its use, just like any other commons, but for the most part anyone can access it freely.
In some ways, the information commons is required and actually helps protect the community. It is actually required that companies that pollute release information about what they are doing. The Corporate Toxics Information Project and information like the Toxic 100, a list of the top 100 polluters, helps people know what these large corporations are doing to the environment. Having the information open to all, as part of a common network helps ensure the safety and knowledge of anyone who wishes to access it.
Mongolian grassland management
Based on a research project by the Environmental and Cultural Conservation in Inner Asia (ECCIA) from 1992 to 1995, satellite images were used to compare the amount of land degradation due to livestock grazing in the regions of Mongolia, Russia, and China. In Mongolia, where shepherds were permitted to move collectively between seasonal grazing pastures, degradation remained relatively low at approximately 9%. Comparatively that of Russia and China, which implemented state-owned pastures involving immobile settlements and in some cases privatization by household, was much higher at around 75% and 33% respectively. A collaborative effort on the part of Mongolians proved much more efficient in preserving grazing land.Lobster fishery of Maine
Widespread success of the Maine lobster industry is often attributed to the willingness of Maine’s lobstermen to uphold and support lobster conservation rules. These rules include harbor territories not recognized by the state, informal trap limits, and laws imposed by the state of Maine (which are largely influenced by lobbying from lobster industry itself). Essentially, the lobstermen collaborate without much government intervention to sustain their common-pool resource.Community forests in Nepal
Implemented in late 1980s, Nepal chose to decentralize government control over forests. Community forest programs work by giving local areas a financial stake in nearby woodlands, and therefore increasing the incentive to protect them from overuse. These local institutions regulate harvesting and selling of timber and land, and must use any profit towards community development and preservation of the forests. In twenty years, locals have noticed visible improvements in the number of trees.Acequia irrigation systems of New Mexico
AcequiaAcequia
An acequia or séquia is a community-operated waterway used in Spain and former Spanish colonies in the Americas for irrigation. Particularly in Spain, the Andes, northern Mexico, and the modern-day American Southwest, acequias are usually historically engineered canals that carry snow runoff or...
is a method of collective responsibility and management for irrigation systems in desert areas. In New Mexico, a community-run organization known as Acequia Associations supervises water in terms of diversion, distribution, utilization, and recycling, in order to reinforce agricultural traditions and preserve water as a common resource for future generations.
Contemporary movements
- Abahlali baseMjondoloAbahlali baseMjondoloAbahlali baseMjondolo , also known as AbM or the red shirts is a shack-dwellers' movement in South Africa which is well known for its campaigning for public housing. The movement grew out of a road blockade organized from the Kennedy Road shack settlement in the city of Durban in early 2005 and now...
in South AfricaSouth AfricaThe Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans... - The Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh CommitteeBhumi Uchhed Pratirodh CommitteeBhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee is an organisation in West Bengal, India, formed to oppose the set-up of a Special Economic Zone in the rural area of Nandigram. It formed an important role in resisting land-acquisitions in the following Nandigram violence...
in IndiaIndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world... - Electronic Frontier FoundationElectronic Frontier FoundationThe Electronic Frontier Foundation is an international non-profit digital rights advocacy and legal organization based in the United States...
- The EZLN in MexicoMexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
- Fanmi LavalasFanmi LavalasFanmi Lavalas is a leftist political party in Haiti. Its leader is former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. It has been a powerful force in Haitian politics since 1991. Fanmi Lavalas governments supported a policy of "growth with equity" based on Caribbean and Western European social...
in Haiti - The Homeless Workers' MovementHomeless Workers' MovementThe Homeless Workers Movement is a shack-dwellers' movement in Brazil. It originated from the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra in 1997...
in BrazilBrazilBrazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people... - The Land is OursThe Land is OursThe Land is Ours is a British land rights campaign advocating access to the land, its resources, and the planning processes.The group was set up in the 1990s by George Monbiot and others....
in the UK - The Landless Workers' MovementLandless Workers' MovementLandless Workers' Movement is a social movement in Brazil; it is the second largest social movement in Latin America with an estimated 1.5 million landless members in 23 out of Brazil's 26 states. The MST states it carries out land reform in a country it sees as mired by unjust land distribution...
in Brazil - Movement for Justice en el BarrioMovement for Justice en el BarrioMovement for Justice in El Barrio/Movimiento por Justicia del Barrio is a community organization based in East Harlem, New York.-Organisational profile:The Movement defines itself as follows:-Background:...
in the United States of America - Narmada Bachao AndolanNarmada Bachao AndolanNarmada Bachao Andolan is social movement consisting of tribal people, adivasis, farmers, environmentalists and human rights activists against the Sardar Sarovar Dam being built across the Narmada river, Gujarat, India....
in IndiaIndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
Key theorists
- Peter BarnesPeter Barnes (entrepreneur)Peter Barnes is an American entrepreneur, environmentalist, and journalist.-Early life:Barnes grew up in New York City. He earned a B.A. in history from Harvard University and an M.A. in government from Georgetown.-Journalist:...
- Yochai BenklerYochai BenklerYochai Benkler is an Israeli-American professor of Law and author. Since 2007, he has been the Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard Law School. He is also a faculty co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.- Biography :In 1984, Benkler...
- Iain BoalIain BoalIain Boal is an Irish social historian of technics and the commons, based as an independent scholar in the San Francisco Bay Area.He is one of the founders of the Retort collective, an association of radical writers, teachers, artists, and activists, which has existed in the Bay Area for the past...
- George CaffentzisGeorge CaffentzisGeorge Caffentzis is a political philosopher and an autonomist Marxist. He founded the Midnight Notes Collective, is a founder member of the co-ordinator of the Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa and a professor of philosophy at the University of Southern Maine.-Selected articles:*, LibCom,...
- Silvia FedericiSilvia FedericiSilvia Federici is a scholar, teacher, and activist from the radical autonomist feminist Marxist tradition. She is a professor emerita and Teaching Fellow at Hofstra University, where she was a social science professor...
- Garrett HardinGarrett HardinGarrett James Hardin was an American ecologist who warned of the dangers of overpopulation and whose concept of the tragedy of the commons brought attention to "the damage that innocent actions by individuals can inflict on the environment"...
- Michael HardtMichael HardtMichael Hardt is an American literary theorist and political philosopher perhaps best known for Empire, written with Antonio Negri and published in 2000...
- David HarveyDavid Harvey (geographer)David Harvey is the Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York . A leading social theorist of international standing, he received his PhD in Geography from University of Cambridge in 1961. Widely influential, he is among the top 20 most cited...
- Lawrence LessigLawrence LessigLawrence "Larry" Lessig is an American academic and political activist. He is best known as a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on copyright, trademark, and radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications, and he has called for state-based activism to promote substantive...
- Peter LinebaughPeter LinebaughPeter Linebaugh is an American Marxist historian who specializes in British history, Irish history, labor history, and the history of the colonial Atlantic. He is a member of the Midnight Notes Collective.-Education:...
- William MorrisWilliam MorrisWilliam Morris 24 March 18343 October 1896 was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement...
- Antonio NegriAntonio NegriAntonio Negri is an Italian Marxist sociologist and political philosopher.Negri is best-known for his co-authorship of Empire, and secondarily for his work on Spinoza. Born in Padua, he became a political philosophy professor in his hometown university...
- Elinor OstromElinor OstromElinor Ostrom is an American political economist. She was awarded the 2009 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, which she shared with Oliver E. Williamson, for "her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons." She was the first, and to date, the only woman to win the prize in...
- Raj PatelRaj PatelRaj Patel is a British-born American academic, journalist, activist and writer who has lived and worked in Zimbabwe, South Africa and the United States for extended periods. He is best known for his 2008 book, Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System...
- John Platt (see Social trapSocial trapSocial trap is a term used by psychologists to describe a situation in which a group of people act to obtain short-term individual gains, which in the long run leads to a loss for the group as a whole...
) - Kenneth RexrothKenneth RexrothKenneth Rexroth was an American poet, translator and critical essayist. He is regarded as a central figure in the San Francisco Renaissance, and paved the groundwork for the movement...
- Ariel Vercelli
- Gerrard WinstanleyGerrard WinstanleyGerrard Winstanley was an English Protestant religious reformer and political activist during the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell...
- Karl LinnKarl LinnKarl Linn was a landscape architect, psychologist, educator, and community activist, best known for inspiring and guiding the creation of "neighborhood commons" on vacant lots in East Coast inner cities during the 1960s through 1980s...
See also
- Accumulation by dispossessionAccumulation by dispossessionAccumulation by dispossession is a concept presented by the Marxist geographer David Harvey, which defines the neoliberal capitalist policies in many western nations, from the 1970s and to the present day, as resulting in a centralization of wealth and power in the hands of a few by dispossessing...
- BiopiracyBiopiracy- Biopiracy and bioprospecting :Bioprospecting is an umbrella term describing the discovery of new and useful biological samples and mechanisms, typically in less-developed countries, either with or without the help of indigenous knowledge, and with or without compensation...
- EjidoEjidoThe ejido system is a process whereby the government promotes the use of communal land shared by the people of the community. This use of community land was a common practice during the time of Aztec rule in Mexico...
- EnclosureEnclosureEnclosure or inclosure is the process which ends traditional rights such as mowing meadows for hay, or grazing livestock on common land. Once enclosed, these uses of the land become restricted to the owner, and it ceases to be common land. In England and Wales the term is also used for the...
- Freedom to roam
- Common landCommon landCommon land is land owned collectively or by one person, but over which other people have certain traditional rights, such as to allow their livestock to graze upon it, to collect firewood, or to cut turf for fuel...
- Common ownershipCommon ownershipCommon ownership is a principle according to which the assets of an enterprise or other organization are held indivisibly rather than in the names of the individual members or by a public institution such as a governmental body. It is therefore in contrast to public ownership...
- Primitive accumulation of capitalPrimitive accumulation of capitalIn Marxist economics and preceding theories, the problem of primitive accumulation of capital concerns the origin of capital, and therefore of how class distinctions between possessors and non-possessors came to be.Adam Smith's account of primitive-original accumulation depicted a peaceful...
- Public propertyPublic propertyPublic property is property, which is dedicated to the use of the public. It is a subset of state property. The term may be used either to describe the use to which the property is put, or to describe the character of its ownership...
- Social trapSocial trapSocial trap is a term used by psychologists to describe a situation in which a group of people act to obtain short-term individual gains, which in the long run leads to a loss for the group as a whole...
- The Tragedy of the Commons
- Tragedy of the anticommonsTragedy of the anticommonsThe tragedy of the anticommons is a neologism coined by Michael Heller to describe a coordination breakdown where the existence of numerous rightsholders frustrates achieving a socially desirable outcome. The term mirrors the older term tragedy of the commons used to describe coordination...
- CopyleftCopyleftCopyleft is a play on the word copyright to describe the practice of using copyright law to offer the right to distribute copies and modified versions of a work and requiring that the same rights be preserved in modified versions of the work...
- PatentleftPatentleftPatentleft is the practice of licensing patents for royalty-free use, on the condition that adopters license related improvements they develop under the same terms...
Further reading
- Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation (Brooklyn: Autonomedia, 2004)
- Peter Linebaugh, The Magna Carta Manifesto: Liberties and Commons for All (University of California Press, 2008)
- Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic (Boston: Beacon Press, 2000)
- Hugo P. Leaming, Hidden Americans: Maroons of Virginia and the Carolinas (Routledge, 1995)
- Marcus Nevitt, Women and the Pamphlet Culture of Revolutionary England, 1640—1660 (Ashgate Publishing, 2006)
- Raj Patel, The Value of Nothing (Portobello Books, 2010)
- Retort, Afflicted Powers: Capital and Spectacle in a New Age of War (Verso, 2005) Geoff Kennedy, Diggers, Levellers, and Agrarian Capitalism: Radical Political Thought in 17th Century England (Lexington Books, 2008)
- Christopher Hill, Winstanley ‘The Law of Freedom’ and other Writings (Cambridge University Press, 2006)
- Christopher Hill, The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution (Penguin, 1984)
- Neil Harvey, The Chiapas Rebellion: The Struggle for Land and Democracy (Duke University Press, 1998)
- Douglas Lummis, Radical Democracy (Cornell University Press 1997)
- Richard Price editor, Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979)
- Kenneth Rexroth, Communalism: From Its Origins to the Twentieth Century (Seabury Press, 1974)
- Pauline Gregg, Free-Born John: A Biography of John Lilburne (Phoenix Press, 2001)
- J.M. Neeson, Commoners: Common Right, Enclosure and Social Change in England, 1700—1820 (Cambridge University Press, 1996)
- John Hanson Mitchel, Trespassing: An Inquiry into the Private Ownership of Land (Perseus Books, 1998)
- Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, What is Property (Cambridge University Press, 1994)
- Charles Fourier, The Theory of the Four Movements(Cambridge University Press, 1996)
External links
- The Commoner
- The Commons: Open Society Sustainability Initiative
- On the Commons - dedicated to exploring ideas and action about the commons—which encompasses natural assets such as oceans and clean air as well as cultural endowments like the Internet, scientific research and the arts.
- The Peer to Peer Foundation
- iCommons
- Earth Commons Rising - forum of global commons events
- The Factory of the Common - network of research events that explore the dimension of the ‘common’ and its institutions in times of financial crisis and cognitive capitalism.
- International Journal of the Commons - an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed open-access journal dedicated to furthering the understanding of institutions for use and management of resources that are (or could be) enjoyed collectively.
- The Land Magazine