US Capitalism Was Born in the Destruction of the Commons
Source: Truthout
“Community has to be intended, not as a gated reality, a grouping of people joined by exclusive interests, and separating them from others, but rather as a quality of relations, a principle of cooperation and of responsibility, to each other and the health of the forests, the seas, the animals.”So writes [feminist] Silvia Federici. But how can we get there from here? The practice of commoning, and the idea that we might hold and manage land and assets together in common, holds a lot of appeal these days. To help us think forward as we do on this show, we have two world-renowned experts on commoning in the house. Federici’s latest book is Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons. Its foreword is written by historian and “Laura Flanders Show” regular, Peter Linebaugh, who is the author of, among other classics, The Magna Carta Manifesto. In this interview, Federici and Linebaugh discuss the history of the commons and how we might apply some of the ideas central to commoning to rebuilding our communities.