Amidst the daunting challenges of our time, there is some great news: The commons is rising. Looking beyond the market and state, commoners are applying their social imaginations and collective power to build a new world of possibilities.
The emerging Commonsverse can be seen in relocalized food systems and community land trusts ... in racial empowerment through collective action and mutual aid ... and in free and open source software, peer production, and platform cooperatives.
Commoning is helping communities to steward scarce water supplies, farmers to develop varied forms of regenerative agriculture, and artists to reclaim control of their creative lives. Ordinary people are becoming more self-reliant through time- banking and collaborative finance, care collectives and gift economies, and alternative local currencies.
In 25 thematic sections, The Commoner’s Catalog for Changemaking explores these and many other transformations through profiles of groundbreaking commons projects, books, websites, organizations, and activist innovations.
CONTENTS
4 Commoning & Changemaking
6 The Commons Rising
12 Commons Seen as Resources
15 Commoning
19 Rethinking Economics
25 Life Itself as a Commons
30 Commons in History
34 Relocalizing the Economy
41 Reclaiming the Land
44 Convivial Conservation
46 Food and Agriculture
51 Stewardship of Water
55 Encountering the More-than-Human
59 More Livable Cities through Commoning
63 The Powers of Peer Production
66 Digital Infrastructures for Commoning
68 Law & the Commons
74 Learning as a Commons
77 Money & Finance
81 Care Work
86 Racial Justice Through Commoning
92 Cooperatives
97 Arts & Culture
103 Commoning Happens Everywhere
106 System-Change Movements
110 Who Owns the Million Dollar Baseball?
114 Image Credits
