Raising the Commons

The Commons - a term still defying common definition

Wikipedia: (with our emphasis)

“The commons is the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, including natural materials such as air, water, and a habitable Earth. These resources are held in common even when owned privately or publicly. 

Commons can also be understood as natural resources that groups of people (communities, user groups) manage for individual and collective benefit. Characteristically, this involves a variety of informal norms and values (social practice) employed for a governance mechanism. 

Commons can also be defined as a social practice of governing a resource not by state or market but by a community of users that self-governs the resource through institutions that it creates….

... The Digital Library of the Commons defines "commons" as "a general term for shared resources in which each stakeholder has an equal interest".

How we use the term "Commons"

Commons are shared resources, of any kind, in which a given set of constituents have a common and equal interest. We especially distinguish Commons from Market and State.

It’s important to note that the nature of interest in what we might naturally think of as a particular set of resources may differ from one group to another, e.g. the Amazon rainforest.

• Globally, we all have an equal interest in the Commons of breathable air, and the Amazon rainforest has a part to play in that, so in that way we all have an equal interest in it. 

• Locally, those living in the Amazon rainforest have additional interests in the Amazon rainforest as their home, as their source of food and livelihood. 

Commons philosophy remains messy. In some ways it is easier to talk about what we think Commons are not:

• they do not have to be 'free access'

• they do not have to be currently under Commons governance