At the Institute for Social Banking summer school, Ecology’s Tori Halliday investigated the role of ‘commoning’ in protecting our shared resources, and the promise it holds for community empowerment
We’re all commoners: that was the message coming through loud and clear at the Institute for Social Banking summer school. The commons are an integral part of our existence and, whether you realise it or not, your life is inextricably entwined with their fate.
But what do we mean by ‘the commons’? Good question – and not an easy one to answer given the slippery nature of their definition. Loosely speaking, they can be described as the shared form of wealth that we collectively inherit or create, and which we must govern in a sustainable and equitable way. This could include physical commons such as soil, land, water, air, national parks and town halls, but also social and cultural commons: music, recipes, religion, healthcare, education, art and stories.
This isn’t some wacky, new-fangled idea – in fact, it’s only relatively recently that we’ve seen a wide-scale tipping of the balance towards an intensely individualistic and materialistic lifestyle, one in which we’ve all become consumers, rather than guardians, of the commons. After the immediate post-war era, we saw the rapid acceleration of mass consumerism – fuelled by new technologies in production – that led us to the have-it-all, throwaway culture of the 21st century: the commons were out and commodities were in. Private ownership was increasingly revered, with prominent works like Garrett Hardin’s Tragedy of the Commons providing the theoretical bedrock for the premise that open access to shared resources could only result in over-exploitation and destruction of the commons, due to the inevitability of human self-interest.
We’ve seen our commons increasingly monopolised by the corporate world and quantified according to how much monetary profit they could potentially yield. The danger of relinquishing our control over and relationship with our commons is that they fall into the hands of those blinkered by the rewards of short-term economic gain: they are carved-up for the highest bidder, exploited beyond recovery, downgraded, restricted, polluted and destroyed. We suddenly find that we’ve lost connection with those things that make life richer and happier, and sold our right to define our own futures.
But before you resign yourself to the violation of humanity and planet under the cold rule of currency, there is hope: the resurgence of commoning. Commoning is about re-establishing our relationships with each other and our responsibilities to our shared resources, about shifting our identities away from the role of consumers and towards that of active participants, co-owners and citizens. The supposedly inescapable tragedy of the commons – the premise that self-seeking behaviour will always win out – is a gross oversimplification, disproved by the countless examples of successful commoning taking place in the real world: community owned renewable energy schemes, shared grazing, open-access knowledge resources, co-operative living and community stores – proof that groups of people can, and do, successfully come up with their own solutions to ensure fully-functioning, healthy commons.
Through understanding and cooperation we can come together to nurture and sustain our shared wealth in a way that’s beneficial to the wider community and environment. It’s all about re-asserting community control over our mutual ‘assets’ and empowering people through decommodification of our resources.
Commoning can free us from the burden of individual ownership. What we had been persuaded to be a privilege – the accumulation of possessions – is now being turned on its head, as people rediscover the benefits of sharing. Commoning enables us access to the resources that we need, without all the hassles and costs inherent in sole ownership. Why buy your own washing machine, lawn mower or cooker, when you can share the financial cost and maintenance requirements with others? Just take a look at this co-housing development in Lancaster to see how well it can work in practice. Through re-discovering the joys of sharing we’re able to reduce overconsumption, saving money and lessening our impact on the planet.
So what’s the role of financial organisations like Ecology in all this? At the Institute of Social Banking Summer School we produced a Living Manifesto laying out 12 essential guidelines to act as a framework for considering how financial institutions can support the health of our commons. You can see the results of our work here and, in the true spirit of the commons, can add your own comments to help shape the Manifesto.
Take a little time to consider the ways that you depend on commons in your own life. What do you take from them? What do you give back? Could you give more? Ultimately, commoning is all about empowerment: through developing commons-based ways of organising and living, we can rediscover autonomous means of satisfying our basic needs for sustenance, economic security and social connectivity, while enabling our most precious resources to flourish.