• a [[place]].
  • #pull [[elinor ostrom]]
  • alternatively, a [[device]].
    • The [[Agora of Flancia]] is a [[knowledge commons]].
    • #go https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commons pull
    • In all matters pertaining the Commons I consider [[doubleloop]] ~ [[@neil]] the steward of this Agora.
    • The following picks from his notes below:
    • "beyond [[market]] and [[state]]"
    • I sometimes think of them as [[embedding]] and thus potentially [[regulating]] markets.
    • recommended [[free, fair and alive]], it's great. from his notes below:
    • [[commons]] are [[social organisms]], [[social systems]], [[social forms]]
    • a [[commons]] is not only about [[sharing]] but about creating [[systems]] that produce [[shareable things]]
    • they enable [[self organized problem solving]]
    • through social processes that build on the sharing of knowledge and physical resources
    • they are [[spaces]] that are born out of the impulse to [[help others]]
    • they bring together solutions to social, political and economic challenges into an integrated whole
    • [[pull]] [[commoning]] [[ontology]]
    • [[vera]] (from wiki below)
      • "The commons is the cultural and natural [[resources]] [[accessible to all]] members of a society, including natural materials such as air, water, and a habitable earth. These resources are held in common, [[not owned privately]]."
      • [[pragmatix]]
      • [[garrett hardin]]
      • [[1968]] [[the tragedy of the commons]]
      • [[1833]] [[william forster lloyd]] herders overusing land
      • [[tragedy of the fishers]]
      • [[frank van laerhoven]] and [[elinor ostrom]]: Hardin essentially invented the term commons
      • of course Ostrom's work shows there are ways to avert this tragedy all around us
      • in Britain, land [[enclosure]] worked over centuries to erode the commons
      • [[peter barnes]] [[sky trust]]
      • [[notable theoreists]] list is a banger
      • [[contemporary commons movements]] too
    • [[there is no commons without commoning]]
    • [[international journal of the commons]]
    • #pull [[frontiers of commoning]]
• a [[list]].
  • add items by #pushing here or write in the default [[stoa]] in this Agora node.
  • [[an agora]].

Commons

[[I like commons]].

In a nutshell: 'a commons' is a shared thing between a bunch of people that they actively maintain together.

The idea is that they are "beyond market and state".

Commons can be found in all kinds of walks of life - the environment (grazing lands, fisheries, community forests), culture, digital realm, knowledge commons.

There's a lot to unpack. My favourite book on commons and commoning is [[Free, Fair and Alive]].

The logic of the commons is the logic of a common humanity that has realized that all humans should be equal participants and beneficiaries in society (see Dyer-Witheford 1999, 2007, 2009; Fuchs 2011b; Hardt and Negri 2009; Žižek 2010).

– [[Social Media: A Critical Introduction]]

What is a commons?

Also what's the difference between 'the Commons' and 'a commons'?

The Commons is a means of provisioning and governance that generally doesn't need the permission of legislatures or courts to move forward.

– [[David Bollier]], [[Stir to Action]] Issue 30

The commons are cared for by the those that directly inhabit and gain from its wealth.

– [[Seeding the Wild]]

Despite vivid differences among commons focused on natural resources, digital systems, and social mutuality, they all share structural and social similarities.

– [[Free, Fair and Alive]]

So instead of conceiving of commons as closed systems of common property managed by a “club,” it is more productive to see them as social organisms who, thanks to their [[semi-permeable membrane]]s, can interact with larger forces of life — communities, ecosystems, other commons.

– [[Free, Fair and Alive]]

The commons is not simply about “sharing,” as it happens in countless areas of life. It is about sharing and bringing into being durable social systems for producing shareable things and activities.

– [[Free, Fair and Alive]]

Commons are living social systems through which people address their shared problems in self-organized ways.

– [[Free, Fair and Alive]]

The commons is a robust class of self-organized social practices for meeting needs in fair, inclusive ways.

– [[Free, Fair and Alive]]

Each commons depends on social processes, the sharing of knowledge, and physical resources. Each shares challenges in bringing together the social, the political (governance), and the economic (provisioning) into an integrated whole.

– [[Free, Fair and Alive]]

The elemental human impulse that we are born with — to help others, to improve existing practices — ripens into a stable social form with countless variations: a commons.

– [[Free, Fair and Alive]]

How big is a commons?

In a commons, the resource can be small and serve a tiny group (the family refrigerator), it can be community-level (sidewalks, playgrounds, libraries, and so on), or it can extend to international and global levels (deep seas, the atmosphere, the Internet, and scientific knowledge).

– [[Understanding Knowledge as a Commons]]

The commons can be well bounded (a community park or library); transboundary (the Danube River, migrating wildlife, the Internet); or without clear boundaries (knowledge, the ozone layer).

– [[Understanding Knowledge as a Commons]]

Why?

the commons is not just about small-scale projects for improving everyday life. It is a germinal vision for reimagining our future together and reinventing social organization, economics, infrastructure, politics, and state power itself.

– [[Free, Fair and Alive]]

The commons is a social form that enables people to enjoy freedom without repressing others, enact fairness without bureaucratic control, foster togetherness without compulsion, and assert sovereignty without nationalism.

– [[Free, Fair and Alive]]

A commons … gives community life a clear focus. It depends on democracy in its truest form. It destroys inequality. It provides an incentive to protect the living world. It creates, in sum, a politics of belonging.”

– [[Free, Fair and Alive]]

The virtue of the commons as a mode of thought and action isn’t simply that it provides for the scaled management of pooled resources, but that it spurs us to envision a way of life founded in interdependence, mutuality and shared responsibility for the outcomes experienced by others. Any situation organized in this way offers us a way to get outside of ourselves, a scaffolding for the development of intersubjectivity.

– [[Radical Technologies]]

Where market logics generally seek to collectivize risk and privatize gain, adherents to the principles of the commons believe that the greatest degree of sustainable benefit is derived from resources when they are held jointly, and managed democratically for the good of all.

– [[Radical Technologies]]

Politics of it

The world of commoning represents a profound challenge to capitalism because it is based on a very different ontology.

– [[Free, Fair and Alive]]

Difficulties for commons

Potential problems in the use, governance, and sustainability of a commons can be caused by some characteristic human behaviors that lead to social dilemmas such as competition for use, free riding, and over- harvesting. Typical threats to knowledge commons are commodification or enclosure, pollution and degradation, and nonsustainability.

– [[Understanding Knowledge as a Commons]]

Related

• [[Elinor Ostrom]]
• [[Commons-based peer production]]
• [[a re-commonification of welfare systems]]