An introduction to 'commoning' for LowImpact.org. Co-authored by Dave Darby and Mike Hales. This is Mike's long draft 29oct19.
Commoning is a practice of collaborating and sharing to *meet everyday needs* and *achieve wellbeing*, of individuals, communities and lived-in environments. There are three dimensions: pool, community, regulation. A system of commoning involves all three.
Most of people’s needs through (pre)history have probably been met through commons, and an estimated *2 billion people* today depend for at least part of their livelihood on resources held in common.
Garret Hardin became infamous for promulgating his view of commons as 'a tragedy'. Elinor Ostrom's painstaking research shows him to be unhelpfully mistaken in his perception.
Preventing and ending enclosure is a core commitment of commoning. Three fundamental classes of **means of subsistence and wellbeing** have been increasingly taken out of commons: land, means of exchange and economic coordination, labour power.
A co-op is **a commons of ownership** and thus will by definition have some kind of democratic stewardship machinery. But formal ownership and the right to enjoy benefits of ownership are not the same as stewardship and curating. These are foundational aspects of commoning.