Commons and Commoning: a Progressive Vision of a Good Society

The Magna Carta and Charter of the Forest of 1217 inaugurated legal doctrines guaranteeing public access and use of land, water, forests, and myriad social and intellectual commons. Yet capitalist enterprises and complicit states have plundered, privatised and commodified them, generating vast wealth and power for a minority while laying waste to ecosystems, democracy, and social equity. This session features two activist-thinkers discussing how commoning can achieve structural transformation and cultural change. Guy Standing, an economist and author of Plunder of the Commons, The Blue Commons and The Politics of Time, will propose a Charter of the Commons to revive the spirit of commoning - shared productive and regenerative activity - and move beyond mindless GDP growth. David Bollier, an American at the Schumacher Center for a New Economics and author of The Commoner’s Catalog for Changemaking and Free, Fair and Alive, will explain how contemporary varieties of commons are building a “parallel polis” that can leverage political and cultural change.
Speakers
Guy Standing
David Bollier
Languages English