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The Rediscovery of the Commons
From: Think Like a Commoner
$1.20
The title of this chapter, “The Rediscovery of the Commons,” has a certain ironic edge because for hundreds of millions of people around the world, the commons has never gone away. It has been a part of their daily lives for centuries. It nourishes them every day with food, firewood, irrigation water, fish, wild fruits and berries, wild game and much else. But these commons, like those of Native Americans and other indigenous peoples, have often been regarded, even today, as invisible or trivial. As most economists will tell you, only markets have the power to meet our essential needs. The recent “rediscovery” of the commons suggests otherwise. Market-obsessed industrialized societies are coming to realize that the Market and the State are not the only ways to organize society or manage resources.
Contributors
David Bollier
David Bollier is an author, activist, blogger and independent scholar who has studied the commons as a transformative paradigm for fifteen years. He is co-founder of the Commons Strategies Group, co-director of the Commons Law Project, and a frequent speaker and strategy advisor. Bollier is an author and editor of six books on different aspects of the commons, including Green Governance, The Wealth of the Commons and Viral Spiral. He blogs at www.Bollier.org and lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.
