Working backwards through your writing. This is an excellent piece, I'm going to need to contemplate a while. Thank you for advancing ideas that have expanded my worldview.
Do you have a reading list? Does it make sense to set one up? Or perhaps two, those of your recommendations and a group contributed (maybe group curated) list? Maybe an rword wiki?
"The commons, according to David Bollier, “is a resource + a community + a set of social protocols. The three are an integrated, interdependent whole.” The community has an interest in managing the resource, and the social protocols are intended to help manage the resource for the benefit of all members of the community. As you will see, this emphasis upon human valuing and social agreements is at the heart of the Prosocial process, at the scale of multigroup society and single groups.
The word “commons” derives from the Norman word commun. To commune is to participate, to share and enjoy fellowship. And in turn the word “commun” draws upon the word munus, which means “a gift, service, or duty” that in turn contributes to the word munificent, meaning “bountiful, liberal, generous,” and the Latin munificare, meaning “to enrich.” Thus the “commons” literally refers to sharing gifts to enrich all. Sharing of gifts implies both the satisfaction of individual needs and a duty to the collective. David Bollier argues that it is more helpful to treat the commons as a verb rather than a noun: “commoning” rather than “the commons.” Commoning is the care the community feels for the resource and the community itself; it is the making and implementation of rules of access and use; and it is the social norms and customs that evolve to ease and resolve conflict, encourage cooperation, and punish free riders and shirkers. Indeed, what Bollier calls “social protocols” is what Ostrom sought to codify in her CDPs. And the Prosocial process is our attempt to embody the ethic of commoning in a set of actionable steps. "
Atkins, Paul W.B.; Wilson, David Sloan; Hayes, Steven C. (2019-10-01). Prosocial (p. 30). New Harbinger Publications. Kindle Edition.
"It helps to understand that commons are not just things or resources. Outsiders to commons scholarship are prone to this mistake, either because they are economists who tend to objectify everything or because they are commoners declaring that a certain resource ought to be governed as a commons (what I call an “aspirational commons”). Commons certainly include physical and intangible resources of all sorts, but they are more accurately defined as paradigms that combine a distinct community with a set of social practices , values and norms that are used to manage a resource. Put another way, a commons is a resource + a community + a set of social protocols . The three are an integrated, interdependent whole."
Bollier, David (2014-04-01). Think Like a Commoner (p. 15). New Society Publishers. Kindle Edition.
"We don’t really have a language for naming commons — real commons — and so they tend to be invisible and taken for granted. The commons is not a familiar cultural category. Anything of value is usually associated with the “free market” or government . The idea that people could actually self-organize durable arrangements for managing their own resources, and that this paradigm of social governance could generate immense value — well, it seems either utopian or communistic, or at the very least, impractical. The idea that the commons could be a vehicle for social and political emancipation and societal transformation, as some commons advocates argue, seems just plain ridiculous."
Bollier, David (2014-04-01). Think Like a Commoner (p. 2). New Society Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Working backwards through your writing. This is an excellent piece, I'm going to need to contemplate a while. Thank you for advancing ideas that have expanded my worldview.
Do you have a reading list? Does it make sense to set one up? Or perhaps two, those of your recommendations and a group contributed (maybe group curated) list? Maybe an rword wiki?
"The commons, according to David Bollier, “is a resource + a community + a set of social protocols. The three are an integrated, interdependent whole.” The community has an interest in managing the resource, and the social protocols are intended to help manage the resource for the benefit of all members of the community. As you will see, this emphasis upon human valuing and social agreements is at the heart of the Prosocial process, at the scale of multigroup society and single groups.
The word “commons” derives from the Norman word commun. To commune is to participate, to share and enjoy fellowship. And in turn the word “commun” draws upon the word munus, which means “a gift, service, or duty” that in turn contributes to the word munificent, meaning “bountiful, liberal, generous,” and the Latin munificare, meaning “to enrich.” Thus the “commons” literally refers to sharing gifts to enrich all. Sharing of gifts implies both the satisfaction of individual needs and a duty to the collective. David Bollier argues that it is more helpful to treat the commons as a verb rather than a noun: “commoning” rather than “the commons.” Commoning is the care the community feels for the resource and the community itself; it is the making and implementation of rules of access and use; and it is the social norms and customs that evolve to ease and resolve conflict, encourage cooperation, and punish free riders and shirkers. Indeed, what Bollier calls “social protocols” is what Ostrom sought to codify in her CDPs. And the Prosocial process is our attempt to embody the ethic of commoning in a set of actionable steps. "
Atkins, Paul W.B.; Wilson, David Sloan; Hayes, Steven C. (2019-10-01). Prosocial (p. 30). New Harbinger Publications. Kindle Edition.
Revisiting the Commons
By Derrick Gentry, originally published by The Owl Light News
January 28, 2021
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2021-01-28/revisiting-the-commons/
A guide to Common Land and Commoning
from Foundation for Common Land
https://foundationforcommonland.org.uk/a-guide-to-common-land-and-commoning
"It helps to understand that commons are not just things or resources. Outsiders to commons scholarship are prone to this mistake, either because they are economists who tend to objectify everything or because they are commoners declaring that a certain resource ought to be governed as a commons (what I call an “aspirational commons”). Commons certainly include physical and intangible resources of all sorts, but they are more accurately defined as paradigms that combine a distinct community with a set of social practices , values and norms that are used to manage a resource. Put another way, a commons is a resource + a community + a set of social protocols . The three are an integrated, interdependent whole."
Bollier, David (2014-04-01). Think Like a Commoner (p. 15). New Society Publishers. Kindle Edition.
"We don’t really have a language for naming commons — real commons — and so they tend to be invisible and taken for granted. The commons is not a familiar cultural category. Anything of value is usually associated with the “free market” or government . The idea that people could actually self-organize durable arrangements for managing their own resources, and that this paradigm of social governance could generate immense value — well, it seems either utopian or communistic, or at the very least, impractical. The idea that the commons could be a vehicle for social and political emancipation and societal transformation, as some commons advocates argue, seems just plain ridiculous."
Bollier, David (2014-04-01). Think Like a Commoner (p. 2). New Society Publishers. Kindle Edition.
https://www.thinklikeacommoner.com/
http://www.bollier.org/