Glossary

Planetary Commons

To hold space for a Planetary commons is to undo the myth we humans cannot cooperate as an innate condition. Such a premise is at odds with one of the most canonical, widely cited ‘scientific’ essays of the 20th century published by an American biologist: “The Tragedy of the Commons” (1968). [1] With its simplistic line of Malthusian ‘reasoning’, environmental “ruin” is the unavoidable consequence of individuals pursuing their self-interest in a resource-scarce world: “Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.” [2] Presented in matter-of-fact terms, the author’s prescription for the avoidance of ‘tragedy’ amounted to the advocacy of coercive regulations upon human “breeding,” and the privatization of land (and its resources), or State-based authority over it, as the only effective means at avoiding ‘inevitable’ degradation. Beyond ethical objections, critics have pointed out the very picture of a ‘tragic commons’ as an ‘invisible hand,’ laissez-faire system is simply false, lacking historical, sociological and empirical backing. [3] As one commentator wrote, it’s not so much the tragedy of the commons that is evoked, but the tragedy of enclosure. [4]

While a tragic picture of the commons gained steam in burgeoning environmental discourse at the time, the political scientist Elinor Ostrom had begun her site-based, empirical investigations on collaborative management systems, analysing how such systems worked - some of which have centuries-old legacies. Throughout her studies focusing on practices and organizational structures of collaborative management, her work traveled from groundwater management in Los Angeles, to Swiss cattle herders, Japanese forest dwellers, and irrigation systems in the Philippines. Contrary to tragic pictures of the commons, these communities had innovated methods of sharing resources in environmentally regenerative ways, [5] documented in her book Governing the Commons. [6] What Ostrom’s successful counter-examples of the commons revealed was actually a core bias at the heart of a tragic commons picture: an essentialist picture of ‘man’ in the mold of Hobbes, where “men seeking their own good…end up fighting each other.” [7] Ostrom’s research culminated in eight design principles for governing the commons: 1) Clearly defined boundaries (who has access to what); 2) Local specificity (to culture and land); 3) Participatory decision-making; 4) Monitoring and accountability; 5) Graduated Sanctions upon those abusing the commons; 6) Accessibility to conflict resolution; 7) Rights to organise for recognition; and 8) Nesting the locality of the commons in broader regional networks. In opposition to a picture of the commons as a quasi-libertarian, ruleless principle, Ostrom’s work highlights the self-governing rigor of the commons that occurs in more complex ways that are not top down, nor State-driven.

While Ostrom’s work was extensive and trans-regional, it was not exhaustive (nor was it claimed to be). Al Mashaa’ in the Levant region is another instance of a ‘commons’ principle - notably emphasising participation, and use. [8] Referring to common land equally shared among farmers, Al Mashaa’ only comes into being when mutual decisions arise to cultivate it together. Claims upon land are arrested when activities cease, rendering this a performative instance of the commons in its focus on use-value over surplus-value, recognising and rewarding the laborious efforts required for making land usable at all. Yet another instance can be exemplified by conservancies on communal land found in Namibia, covering the successful collective management of more than 40 million acres of land, which were formally recognised in 1998, and today 80 of such conservancies are operational. [9]

Drawing from Ostrom’s empirical, and thus localised regional investigations, many naysayers have cast doubt on her advocacy for the commons in Planetary-scaled ecological considerations. While her eight commons governance design principles from 1990 are not directly extensible to what we may think of as a Planetary Commons, her approach opens a window for thinking “beyond the usual policy approaches of regulatory command and control, government intervention in market pricing systems, and formal agreements among national sovereigns.” [10] Upholding the promise of the commons, unsettles the facile narratives of ‘each man for himself’ that undermine the real-world successes of the collective management of resources.

[1] This essay continues to circulate and serve as a canonical reference in both business and scholarly anthologies, with more than 56,000 citations at the time of writing. The author Garrett Hardin had later co-founded the anti-immigrant Californians for Population Stabilization and The Environmental Fund, which primarily served to lobby Congress for nativist and isolationist policies. The Southern Poverty Law Center highlighted the posthumous Garrett Hardin Society continues Hardin’s “mission of transforming environmentalism into a weapon to use against immigrants, minorities and poor nations.” https://www.splcenter.org/resources/extremist-files/garrett-hardin/
[2] Garrett Hardin, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” in Science, New Series 162,  no. 3859 (December 1968): 1243-1248.
[3] Michelle Nijhuis, “The miracle of the commons,” in aeon, 2021. https://aeon.co/essays/the-tragedy-of-the-commons-is-a-false-and-dangerous-myth
[4] Arinn Amer, “The “Tragedy of the Commons” Is a Dubious, Right-Wing Concept,” in Jacobin, 2023. https://jacobin.com/2023/10/tragedy-of-the-commons-garrett-hardin-white-supremacy-enclosure-privatization-history
[5] Michelle Nijhuis, “The miracle of the commons”.
[6] Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
[7] Ibid., 2.
[8] I was introduced to Al Mashaa’ through the research and films of Marwa Arsanios.
[9] Michelle Nijhuis, “The miracle of the commons”.
[10] Paul C. Stern, “Design principles for global commons: natural resources and emerging technologies,” in International Journal of the Commons Vol. 5, no 2 August 2011, pp. 213–232.

Author: Patricia Reed