James Quilligan - Political Economy and the Inclusive Commons at the House of Commons
Channel: Anna Betz
Date: 2012-09-07

James Quilligan, Chairman for the Secretariat of the Global Commons Trust, gave a series of 12 seminars in May 2012 in London. This one was held at the House of Commons and convened by MP Michael Meacher.

No Intro.

For generations our resources have been under assault from global market forces, regional and national policy development, and inadequate legal recognition of common property rights.

We are now recognizing that the benefits of perpetual economic growth are not compensating for the vast damages and risks they create — from insecurity, global warming, ecological degradation and species loss to hunger, poverty, debt and financial meltdown. We're also realizing that neither the private sphere nor government provision and distribution — which created these problems to begin with — are capable of solving them.

This seminar focuses on the commons movement as a consciously organized third sector that can create a more beneficial balance in economics and society. The commons -- involving social, cultural, intellectual, digital, solar, natural, genetic and material resources -- are already becoming a potent counterforce to the Market State. This is because the commons are not just resources but the set of relationships they create, including the communities that use them, and the cultural and social practices and property regimes that manage them.

Through the co-production and co-governance of a commons, resource users become the producers of their own resources, allowing the traditional model of property ownership (utility, self-interest, profit) to be eclipsed by a new framework of trusteeship (sustainability, quality of life and well-being).

The self-organization and rule-based production of a commons is thus a grassroots application of the principles of freedom and equality which are idealized but imperfectly expressed through modern free markets and state-enforced justice. Unlike the Market State, the commons cannot be coordinated by some ultimate authority exercising control through a unified command structure. Rather, they express the massive, heterogeneous forces of society and the common responsibility of people to protect and sustain their valuable common goods.

This new social dynamic — arising from the shared values and meanings of people's life-experiences in the organization and production of their commons —includes but transcends the market and state, thus bringing people a new form of political power.