Commons

Commons is about reclaiming, sharing and self-governing resources that belong to everyone. The commons is a practical means for re-inventing society in ways that markets and governments are unable or unwilling to entertain.

Commons does not mean resources alone are centre stage, of higher importance are the relationships among us, the commoners, our ways of commoning!

 

What are Commons? (english) - Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung

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Recent articles

For 200 years we've been building a gigantic worldwide machine for permanent economic growth. But it is not fulfilling its promise of prosperity, and exceeding the planet’s ecological limits. Together with Attac Germany we have made this film about the permanent economic growth, which breaks the ecological limits of the earth and makes it uninhabitable. A fundamental change is not only necessary, but possible.

The Growth Machine - Global Justice Now

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Books

Free, fair, and alive: the insurgent power of the commons

Book
Ambitious, sophisticated, and resolutely grounded in everyday realities, "Free, Fair and Alive" present a compelling vision of a future that can actually work. Written by two highly experienced commons activists, this book is at once a penetrating cultural critique, table-pounding political treatise, and practical playbook for building a new world of commoning.

Free, Fair and Alive – The Insurgent Power of the Commons - Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung

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Video: Free, Fair and Alive – The Insurgent Power of the Commons

Silke Helfrich and David Bollier give us in their book „Free, Fair and Alive – The Insurgent Power of the Commons“ hope that there is a way aiming to reduce our structural dependency on market and state. Commons are such a way. You can read this book as a guide to unlearning capitalism and a handbook to commoning. Last but not least the book provides a language for what we really need for a good life.

Patterns of Commoning

More than sixty frontline activists, academics and project leaders from twenty countries explain how commoning is empowering people to challenge the deep pathologies of contemporary capitalism and invent powerful, participatory alternatives. A special series of essays explores the inner dynamics of commoning - its ethics, social practices and worldview - to explain why the building of new worlds starts from within.

The Wealth of the Commons

The Wealth of the Commons is about history, political change, public policy and cultural transformation on a global scale – but most of all, it’s about commoners taking charge of their lives and their endangered resources. It’s about common people doing uncommon things.
Commoning is at bottom a process by which we enter into a participatory culture and can sketch an idea of how we want to live together as a society.
Silke Helfrich und David Bollier

Commons Transition Primer Website

Take a look at the new Commons Transition Primer website, with texts, illustrations, infographics and other interesting features like Key Concept pop ups or case studies on the value of P2P and Commons approaches to work, politics, economy, environment and culture.

What are the P2P and the commons and how do they relate?

Publications

Democratic Money and Capital for the Commons

This "Democratic Money and Capital for the Commons" report is a rare synthesis of perspectives for rethinking money &  finance, even if a more complete commons agenda on this topic remains to  be developed.