The Commons

The Potential Of Commons/Public Partnerships

September 2, 2026 David Bollier. Create! Commons Public Partnerships, Community development, The Commons, United Kingdom (UK)

As the Commonsverse becomes more robust worldwide, a more urgent question is arising: Can commoners work constructively with the state, and if so, how? State power tends to have its own narrow ideas about how to get things done – and what governance, law, bureaucratic power, and public participation should look like. Commons open up new possibilities for getting things done, however. They can generate types of value that elude markets and bureaucracy, and offer new ways of knowing and being. But there’s a catch. It can be tricky and difficult for the state and commons to work together. Each has such different premises about power and worldview. Can they develop some sort of rapprochement?

Taking Co-Living Seriously In Architecture And Design

August 4, 2026 David Bollier. Create! Architecture, Co-housing, Housing, The Commons

Surging real estate markets, among other factors, have made US housing unaffordable to large segments of the population, especially young people. So much of it is designed for conventional nuclear families and upscale buyers seeking luxury amenities. For lower- and middle-income people, simply finding affordable housing is hard enough; it almost seems utopian to want housing with attractive public amenities, shared spaces, and a spirit of neighborliness and belonging. Fortunately, a number of renegade architects, builders, and city planners see great potential in shared living arrangements.

Commoning, Thresholding, And The Concrete Fantasy: Lessons From France

July 15, 2026 Ida Susser, Scheer Post. Create! Constructive Program, France, The Commons, Yellow Vest

Over a decade ago two innovative movements mobilized in France to take on the neoliberal assaults on the commons and the public good. The Nuit Debout was an Occupy movement that began in Paris in 2016. It was followed by the Yellow Vests, an extraordinary formation that rushed into Paris from the provinces starting in 2018. Triggered by a rise in fuel taxes, the Yellow Vests rapidly articulated broader grievances over inequality, territorial neglect, and the erosion of public services. They demanded affordable transport, pensions, hospitals, and schools.

A Visual History Of English Land Commoners And Their Folk Culture

July 2, 2026 David Bollier. Create! Capitalism, Commoners, The Commons, United Kingdom (UK)

Our modern mental maps of commons are woefully inadequate, in part because we have forgotten the history of commons and its once-flourishing folk culture. Leah Gordon, an English photographer, writer, and filmmaker has set out to fix that through a deep dive into the history of English commons. The result, produced with two collaborators, is her fascinating and beautiful book, Common People: A Folk History of Land Rights, Enclosure and Resistance. Her two partners in the project are Stephen Ellcock, a renowned visual curator, and writer Anabelle Edwards, who has studied alternative lifestyles that reject the modern market/state and its culture.

New Forms Of Rural Resurgence Through Commoning And Care

June 2, 2026 David Bollier. Create! Local Economy, New Economy, rural communities, The Commons

To outsiders, the Alps may conjure images of majestic mountain landscapes and carefree ski vacations. But to tens of thousands of people living in small Alpine towns, the challenges they face aren’t so different from those of many rural towns: How to meet basic needs and make the economy more resilient? How to deal with the worsening disruptions of climate change? How to assert greater regional control when distant, city-based politicians and investors push very different priorities? Paradoxically enough, remote rural locations are precisely where a lot of exciting ecosocial and economic innovations are arising.

‘Ecocivilization’ – A Bold Vision For System Change

May 4, 2026 David Bollier. Create! climate crisis, Ecocivilization, Green Transition, social transformation, The Commons

With so many social movements seeking system change – cooperatives, commons, Doughnut Economics, peer production, relocalization and more – things quickly get confusing. There are so many different vocabularies, political premises, and theories of change swirling about. How can we possibly work toward a coherent, common future? Jeremy Lent’s new book, Ecocivilization, is a significant beachhead in answering this question. It demonstrates that a feasible future is possible precisely by drawing upon the rich pluriverse of possibilities. Lent’s book is therefore a relief to encounter.

Degrowth And Its Future

March 2, 2026 David Bollier. Create! climate crisis, Degrowth, Sustainability, The Commons

Humanity cannot continue to expand production and consumption exponentially on a finite planet. It’s biophysically impossible. The carbon emissions are already producing more volatile weather patterns, more frequent floods, droughts, and wildfires, and disruptions of agriculture, commerce and global supply chains. And yet the US Government and respectable opinion remain in zones of denial or deflection. The Trump administration is savaging climate science, environmental regulation, and international treaties, while saner responsible adults are at least focused on energy efficiency and renewables.

Building Social Wealth Through Mutual Aid

December 6, 2025 David Bollier. Create! Community Wealth, Mutual Aid, The Commons, Time Banks

As market economies become more expensive and predatory, Stephanie Rearick is showing that it’s entirely possible to meet people’s needs effectively through care and cooperation, through a kind of alternative social economy. For more than twenty years, Rearick has championed mutual aid and cooperative economics through such projects as the Madison Mutual Aid Network Cooperative and the Dane County TimeBank, both of which she founded. Rearick also works internationally through Humans United in Mutual Aid Networks, a global network of networks dedicated to building mutual aid economy.

The Future Requires A Politics Of Relationality

November 2, 2025 David Bollier. Create! Capitalism, climate crisis, Liberation, The Commons

At a time when the superstructures of human civilization seem terminally messed up – unable to address climate collapse, authoritarian capitalism, among many other wicked problems – I was thrilled to encounter a book that dares to imagine a fresh and compelling way forward. The book, Relationality: An Emergent Politics of Life Beyond the Human, is a big-hearted and poetic yet rigorous scholarly book. On my latest episode of Frontiers of Commoning (Episode #68), I interviewed the three authors -- noted anthropologist Arturo Escobar and global studies professor Michal Osterweil, both at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Kriti Sharma, a professor of critical race science and technology studies at UC Santa Cruz.

A Vision Of A Post-Capitalist Eco-Localism That Works

October 4, 2025 David Bollier. Educate! Capitalism, climate crisis, The Commons, Transformation

What might the world look like if climate change is not stopped? What if societies refuse to, or cannot rein in capitalism and its relentless growth and exploitation of nature? Chris Smaje, a writer and farmer in southwest England, offers some intelligent speculation in his recently published book, Finding Lights in a Dark Age: Sharing Land, Work and Craft. Smaje is not a doomer or survivalist, nor given to lurid prophesy. His book is a serious analysis of current macro-political and social trends and how they might play out in everyday life. He extrapolates from existing trends -- the rising costs of fossil fuels, food, and transport, the proliferation of droughts, floods, and wildfires, etc. – to sketch a vision of a post-capitalist, climate-disrupted world that is already arriving.

From Capital To Commons: A Review

September 30, 2025 Bernard Marszalek, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Capitalism, Decentralization, Energy, The Commons

Environmental news, paradoxically, approaches banality as every day a new horror finds resonance in the media we consume and which consumes us. These daily reports enervate us and lead to resignation. Is our passivity the intention? If we refuse to be immobilized, how do we find a route out of our misery? We don’t suffer from a lack of proffered paths for our “engagement.” A multiplicity of them pursue our attention, many illusory, and often provided as a service for a “slight fee.” In frustration, and as a kind of therapy, the most committed rush to clean a beach, while mostly we sign online petitions, or make donations to allay the futility we feel. The complexity of our ecological predicament, when we are methodically informed, clarifies matters.

The Importance Of Network Protocols For Commoning And Open Markets

August 2, 2025 David Bollier. Create! Apps, Digital Platforms, Technology, The Commons

Most of us don’t give much thought to the arcane technical protocols that make the Internet and its various platforms work. Yet these invisible architectures of code profoundly affect how we can interact with others. They determine what sorts of information we can receive and even how our worldviews and identities are shaped. Sometimes tech protocols empower us to govern ourselves as commoners and freely collaborate with each other. Think open source software, wikis, and collaborative websites. More typically, network protocols are used to create closed, proprietary corporate platforms that turn us into dependent consumers and victims of data-surveillance.

Systems Are Breaking And That’s Our Opportunity

July 12, 2025 Jem Bendell, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Strategize! Failed State, Mutual Aid, Solidarity Economy, Sustainability, The Commons

A few months ago, I reconnected with a friend whom I had worked with on an initiative on ‘the sharing economy’. At the time, we were both ‘Young Global Leaders’ (YGLs) with the World Economic Forum. It was 2013, and we had volunteered our time to bring attention to how new technologies could be used to help everyone have a good life with less ecological impact. Personally, we were imagining a future of peer-to-peer resource sharing, community-based production, and cooperative ownership. Meeting up after years, we laughed that our work had oddly contributed to the World Economic Forum publishing the line that became infamous as a globalist’s dystopian injunction: “You will own nothing and be happy.”

How The Commons Can Reach Working-Class Communities

June 24, 2025 Dave Darby, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Strategize! collapse, Empires, Sustainability, The Commons

All civilisations fall in the end. The Roman Empire is long gone, along with the ancient Greeks, Egyptians and Sumerians. Will the global civilisation of corporate capitalism buck the trend? Of course not, but how long does it have left? In such a complex system, it’s impossible to predict when there will be a sudden shift, but there’s good evidence that the process of breakdown has already begun. Damage to soils, water tables, forests, the oceans and climate is occurring alongside economic and political upheaval. No longer is this a theoretical matter about the distant future, but something we should be preparing for today. But how? I come at that question after decades working on ‘sustainable development’. During the 90s, I was doing that in Eastern Europe, but was dismayed that most saw corporate capitalism as the path to follow.

The Potential For Community Energy And Commons In North Wales

June 16, 2025 Dave Darby, Resilience. Organize! Community, Energy, Local Economy, The Commons, Wales

I’d like to find out more about what you’re doing, your ambitions, the barriers you face. You contacted us, so you know that we’re working to build commons in Stroud – to bring assets into community ownership without debt or giving away equity, but with a reasonable return for investors, strong asset locks, and the ability to federate with other projects around the country, and eventually the world. So after this initial interview, I’d like to bring you together with specialists to see where we might collaborate. So first, before we ask about what you’re doing – why are you doing it? What’s your motivation?

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