Commons

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.

Why are urban commons so crucial for a social-ecological transition? A review on grassroots initiatives for urban commons transitions in the global north and south and the construction of an institutional framework.

This policy document reflects on some of the EU policy barriers and opportunities in the areas of participatory democracy, the urban environment and knowledge in the digital environment.

What is valuable in society and how shall we protect it? This report, written by David Bollier, draws upon three days of discussion by twenty thinkers and activists convened by the Commons Strategies Group.

Michel Bauwens and Vasilis Niaros of the P2P Foundation explore how new value regimes - such as for example open and contributory value accounting practices - can represent a shift towards post-capitalist practices.

This is the report of a Berlin workshop that was designed to serve as a space for experts with backgrounds in international trade, law, the environment and public health to  review the draft  of a WTO Agreement for the Supply of Global Public Goods as proposed by KEI and provide technical and strategic advice on how to move forward.

The report summarizes the outcome of a workshop of the Commons Strategies Group in cooperation with the Heinrich Böll Foundation with a diverse group of twenty commons-oriented activists, academics, policy experts and project leaders for three days in Lehnin, Germany, outside of Berlin, from February 28 to March 1, 2016.

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.

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.

This Strategy Memorandum is a first attempt to survey the more significant realms of commons-based legal innovation occurring today.  Besides providing a rough inventory of more than sixty projects and theaters of legal innovation, David Bollier proposes that these disparate initiatives be conceptualized as a new strategic framing, “Law for the Commons.”

This paper describes how the commons perspective, as a new framework for understanding knowledge, can contribute to some important, long-overdue EU policy discussions.

This report reflects intensive forms of exploratory dialogue and cooperation among social movements. The movements are especially dedicated to cooperatives, a Degrowth economy, Social and Solidarity Economy, peer production, Transition Towns, ecological/sustainability, and the commons.

To explore the possibilities of an Open Co-operativism, the Commons Strategies Group convened a workshop of a dozen notable activists, policy experts, academics and project leaders. This report summarizes the main results of the workshop.

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.

This report attempts to explore the potential of the commons if they are used wisely and sustainably. It delves into the reasons why so many commons are threatened and examines the rules that can help protect the commons from ruin. This article provides also a french version of the report.

Our current version of capitalism - the corporate, globalised version 2.0 - is rapidly squandering our shared inheritances. Peter Barnes offers a solution: Protect the commons by giving it property rights and strong institutional managers.