Washblog

Return to the Commons: Community Economies in Our Times
Viki Sonntag

In The Great Transformation, first published in 1944, economist Karl Polanyi wrote about the social consequences of the enclosing of the commons:

“Enclosures have appropriately been called a revolution of the rich against the poor. The lords and nobles were upsetting the social order, breaking down law and custom, sometimes by means of violence, often by pressure and intimidation. They were literally robbing the poor of their share of the common ... The fabric of society was being disrupted; desolate villages and the ruins of human dwellings testified to the fierceness with which the revolution raged, endangering the defenses of the country, wasting it towns, decimating its population, turning its overburdened soil into dust, harassing its people and turning them from decent husbandmen into a mob of beggars and thieves.” (p.37)

The enclosures, which took place in England from the 15th to 18th centuries, marked the beginning of a chain of developments – the industrial revolution, colonialization, the rise of corporations, globalization – embodied in successive economic regimes. In the name of economic efficiency and material prosperity, the rich have appropriated an ever increasing sum of commonly held resources. This greed has led inexorably to the planet-threatening devastation we are now witnessing. Each new regime has visited terrible environmental and social disintegration on the poor such that today nearly half the world’s people live on less than $2 a day and pending environmental and economic collapse has triggered wars in many parts of the world.

While no one disputes the technological and material comforts of living in the privileged countries, fewer and fewer believe that the world’s problems can be solved by an unlimited amount of material commodities. Rather the opposite: there is sufficient cause to believe that economic dependence on growth in the form of materials and energy consumption is at the root of our troubles. If so, we must re-organize the production-consumption system to prevent social and ecological collapse.

Embedded as we are in the market economy, this is a daunting prospect. Yet, that six decades of unprecedented economic and technological growth (the years since WW II) have failed to result in greater happiness or satisfaction among the privileged of the world (much less the disenfranchised) should, ironically, give us hope. Change begins with the realization that the usual way of doing things no longer works, (if it ever did). The challenge is to align our economic practices with the future we hope for.

I submit that a just, democratic and sustainable future calls for a return to the commons. More particularly, a commons organized in keeping with the principles of community stewardship of the community’s resources. Further, imagine this commons as a global network of diverse and unique community economies, built on personal relationships of reciprocity and mutual respect, nourished by the circular flow of resources. I say “imagine” as this vision is a far cry from our usual experience of economic cannibalism.

Which brings me back to Karl Polanyi. As far as economists go, Polanyi was an odd duck. For one thing, he paid heed to the very real social effects of economic change rather than assuming them away as extraneous to economic progress. In short, he saw social and economic well-being as being interrelated. His central thesis was that when you abstract the economy from community according to the some imagined ideal of market efficiency, what you get is destruction of people and the planet. In effect, we consume ourselves and our life sources to feed our addiction to material goods. The global market economy is the apotheosis of this tragedy.

At this time in history, we face a final enclosing of the commons in the privatization of the resources upon which all life depends. At risk are air, water, soil, wildlife, the eco-services by which the planet renews itself, but also the fruit of social evolution – knowledge and information, democracy, cultural expression and creativity. To what or whose gain? When well-being is finally reduced to cost transactions and the commoditization of life – to being a function of the market economy – we have forfeited the game. Economic elites will prevail. The rule of material self-interest governs our communities. And we ourselves lose a sense of what relationships involve, of what our responsibilities to each other are, and, tragically, our sense of wonder in belonging to the mystery of life itself. As an end unto themselves, market economies exact a terrible sameness.

As we near collapse on a global level, the choice of life over endless consumption will come upon us. What matters is when we make that choice. And lest the vision of the commons seem unbelievably far off, consider the resurgence of life against the forces of globalization in the emergence of community economies.

But, first, let us be clear that a return to the commons presents an alternative to both free market rule and government control and management. Putting resources in the public domain, that is, under the state’s control, is not the same as community self-determination. In the commons, governance of resources is by the community and for the community. In the commons, a community’s values are reflected in its economic (read resource) choices and community self-sufficiency is an expression of “power with” instead of “power over”. A return to the commons involves nurturing the web of relationships that make up the community’s life.

Take, for example, local food economies. The beauty of local food economies is not just farmers markets but restaurants who embrace saving farmland as part of their business mission, growers who protect salmon habitat, social entrepreneurs who give meaningful jobs to the youth in their communities, and backyard gardeners who grow a row or more of vegetables for others than themselves. In this growing web of relationships, there is the experience of much, much more than economic transactions. There is the experience of a near perfect joy in creating a life-centered community, of being part of a greater whole. And, oh yes, it is extremely hard work too and sometimes anxiety producing in its uncertainty. After all, in real life, you can’t control everything.

There are other spheres of hope, such as the economic success of open source technologies that celebrate the creative force of collective human intelligence; the bourgeoning economic democracy embedded in distributed energy systems based on renewable energy technologies; and the growing numbers of social enterprises. At the heart of each of these developments is a recognition that we (humans) can’t own what gives us life without causing grievous suffering, life instead is what we (humans, creatures and the planet) create together.

A return to the commons means reclaiming our shared responsibility of caring for both human and natural resources that they continue to provide for our collective well-being. It means living with dignity, taking no more than we give back, and the just distribution of resources. It means holding respect for the sanctity of each individual life in its relation to the myriad forms of life. And it means embracing our interdependency.

For the sake of this planet and all of its life, let us wake up to our shared existence now.

Resources for Going Deeper:
Karl Polanyi. The Great Transformation. (Beacon Press, 1990). Also, see Fred Block’s on-line essay, Introduction to the Great Transformation, by Karl Polanyi

For the connection between over consumption of resources, war and collapse, see Jared Diamond’s Collapse (Viking, 2005)

For the historical evolution of the commons under community stewardship, see Gary Snyder’s The Practice of the Wild (Shoemaker Hoard, 1990).

Dr. Viki Sonntag is a practitioner/researcher/activist in alternative economics and the founding director of EcoPraxis, a non-profit collaborative working to put the vision of community economies into practice.

Many thanks to Dr. Sonntag and all our conversationalists.   We are glad you are with us.