DAVID BOLLIER-HOW THE COMMONS LETS US MANAGE OUR OWN COMMUNITY RESOURCES

ENVISION THIS: The Commons  provides us a self-organized system by which communities manage resources with minimal or no reliance on the Market or State

The first two listeners to join our conversation at 646-652-2235 will receive FREE copies of Think Like a Commoner!

David Bollier is  an author, activist, blogger and consultant who spends a lot of time exploring the commons as a new paradigm of economics, politics and culture. David has written, co-authored or co-edited thirteen books.  His most recent, Think Like a Commoner, describes the logic, worldview and ethics of the commons, and the burgeoning international movement of commoners, especially in Europe and the global South. He says, “The book provides a succinct overview of the great diversity of commons in the world and the many pernicious enclosures now being fought.” It has received glowing endorsements from Bill McKibben, Ralph Nader, Maude Barlow, David Korten, Michel Bauwens and Peter Barnes. 

David says, “the commons is not so much a fixed, universal thing as a general concept describing durable, dynamic sets of social relationships for managing resources -- all sorts of resources:  digital, urban, natural, indigenous, rural, cultural, scientific, to use some crude categories.  Each commons has its own distinctive character because each is shaped by its particular location, history, culture and social practices. The term commoning means to suggest that the commons is really more of a verb than a noun.  It is a set of ongoing practices, not an inert physical resource.”  He will discuss how the commons manages resources with minimal or no reliance on the Market or State and protects the wealth that we inherit or create together and must pass on, undiminished or enhanced, to our children.