Commons

This article is about the term "commons" in political economics. For the Wikimedia project, see Wikimedia Commons. For other uses, see Commons (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with common land or Commmons.
Sheep grazing on common pasture, a stereotypical environmental commons, at Castlemorton

The commons is the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, including natural materials such as air, water, and a habitable Earth. These resources are held in common even when owned privately or publicly. Commons can also be understood as natural resources that groups of people (communities, user groups) manage for individual and collective benefit.[1] Characteristically, this involves a variety of informal norms and values (social practice) employed for a governance mechanism.[2] Commons can also be defined as a social practice[3] of governing a resource not by state or market but by a community of users that self-governs the resource through institutions that it creates.[4]

  1. ^ Smith, E. T. (2024-01-23). "Practising Commoning". The Commons Social Change Library. Retrieved 2024-02-20.
  2. ^ Basu, Soutrik; Jongerden, Joost; Ruivenkamp, Guido (17 March 2017). "Development of the drought tolerant variety Sahbhagi Dhan: exploring the concepts commons and community building". International Journal of the Commons. 11 (1): 144. doi:10.18352/ijc.673.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Classical theory based on Elinor Ostrom's book "Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press".