Defending, Reclaiming and Reinventing the Commons

Abstract

This study addresses the following questions: Who destroys the commons? Why have the commons to be reinvented? Can there be something like global commons? What can ‘new commons’ be in rich industrialized countries? The authors argue that there can be no reinvention of the commons in the industrialized North without a defense of the commons in the largely subsistence-based South. They identify two opposed concepts of ‘reinventing the commons:’ first, that which means to defend, to reclaim and to reinvent the commons from below, through grassroots action of local people for local people; and, second, the concept constructed and invented from above, namely the concept of ‘global commons,’ which is being introduced by international agencies and global players, mostly for the benefit of TNCs. The authors conclude that commons cannot exist without a community but equally the community cannot exist without economy, in the sense of oikonomia, that is, the reproduction of human beings within the social and the natural household. Hence, reinventing the commons is linked to the reinvention of the communal or commons-linked economy.