The Commons as a Transformative Vision

[marmar]

from OnTheCommons.org:


The Commons as a Transformative Vision
Essay from a new book explains the world beyond market & state

By David Bollier & Silke Helfrich
Originally published in The Wealth of the Commons

The Wealth of the Commons ($22.50 Levellers Press) is an expansive anthology probing the promise of commons-based solutions all over the world. Bill McKibben praises it as a “fine collection (that) makes clear that the idea of the commons is fully international, and increasingly fully worked-out.”

Edited by our former OTC colleague David Bollier and German activist Silke Helfrich—two cofounders of the Commons Strategy Group— the book enlists authors from around the globe to explore the full dimension of what the commons means in our lives and to detail ways it can be applied to transform politics, economics, culture and the fabric of our communities. This essay is adapted from the book’s introduction. —Jay Walljasper

It has become increasingly clear that we are poised between an old world that no longer works and a new one struggling to be born. Surrounded by an archaic order of centralized hierarchies on the one hand and predatory markets on the other, presided over by a state committed to planet-destroying economic growth, people around the world are searching for alternatives. That is the message of various social conflicts all over the world—of the Spanish Indignados and the Occupy movement, and of countless social innovators on the Internet. People want to emancipate themselves not just from poverty and shrinking opportunities, but from governance systems that do not allow them meaningful voice and responsibility. This book is about how we can find the new paths to navigate this transition. It is about our future. But since there is no path forward, we must make the path. This book therefore is about some of the most promising new paths now being developed.

Beyond the Market and State

For generations, the state and market have developed a close, symbiotic relationship, to the extent of forging what might be called the market/state duopoly. Both are deeply committed to a shared vision of technological progress and market competition, enframed in a liberal, nominally democratic polity that revolves around individual freedom and rights. Market and state collaborate intimately and together have constructed an integrated worldview – a political philosophy and cultural epistemology, in fact – with each playing complementary roles to enact their shared utopian ideals of endless growth and consumer satisfaction.

The market uses the price system and its private management of people, capital and resources to generate material wealth. And the state represents the will of the people while facilitating the fair functioning of the “free market.” Or so goes the grand narrative. This ideal of “democratic capitalism” is said to maximize the well-being of consumers while enlarging individual political and economic freedoms. This, truly, is the essence of the modern creed of “progress.”

Historically, the market/state partnership has been a fruitful one for both. Markets have prospered from the state’s provisioning of infrastructure and oversight of investment and market activity. Markets have also benefited from the state’s providing of free and discounted access to public forests, minerals, airwaves, research and other public resources. For its part, the state, as designed today, depends upon market growth as a vital source of tax revenue and jobs for people – and as a way to avoid dealing with inequalities of wealth and social opportunity, two politically explosive challenges. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://onthecommons.org/magazine/commons-transformative-vision