To overcome the crises of our time, new ways of thinking, acting and being are urgently needed. This film looks at the global crises facing humanity and at a hopeful vision of the future emerging across the world. To find out more, see the links at the end of the video.

We hope the film Re-imagine the Future provoked your interest in exploring its themes more deeply. The quest to build attractive, functional alternatives to the world ordained by neoliberal economics is, in fact, growing. A kaleidoscope of innovations around the world is showing that the market and state are not the only players. A burgeoning Commons Sector is emerging and starting to flourish.

This webpage is a portal into the growing world of system-change activism, experimentation, legal and policy innovation, academic research and political analysis. Consider these links an invitation to enter into this world yourself. After all, the answers are not going to come from somewhere else; they have to start with us, personally and locally, and expand outward. We need to re-imagine the future.

Index

mushrooms

What is the Commons?

Key Commons Websites

Activists/Thinkers Concerned about System Change

yellow-tent

Notable Movements

(an incomplete list)

25 Significant Commons Projects

….and countless other examples. See Patterns of Commoning and the Digital Library on the Commons.

treeknot

Books and Essays

  • Peter Barnes, Capitalism 3.0: A Guide to Reclaiming the Commons
  • David Bollier, Think Like a Commoner: A Short Introduction to the Commons
  • “Commons as a Paradigm for Social Transformation” (Next System Project, April 2016).
  • — and Silke Helfrich, editors, The Wealth of the Commons: A World Beyond Market and State (Levellers Press, 2012).
  • Fritjof Capra and Ugo Mattei, The Ecology of Law: Toward a Legal System in Tune with Nature and Community (Berrett-Koehler, 2015).
  • Commons Strategies Group, “State Power and Commoning: Transcending a Problematic Relationship” (June 2016).
  • Giacomo D’Alisa et al., Degrowth: A Vocabulary for a New Era (Routledge, 2014).
  • Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation (Autonomedia, 2004).
  • Lewis Hyde, Common as Air: Revolution, Art and Ownership (Farrar Straus, 2011).
  • —- , The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World (Vintage, 1983/2007)
  • Peter Linebaugh: The Magna Carta Manifesto: Liberty and Commons for All (University of California Press, 2008).
  • Mary Mellor, Debt or Democracy: Public Money for Sustainability and Social Justice (Pluto Press, 2016).
  • Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (Cambridge University Press, 1990).
  • Douglas Rushkoff, Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity (Portfolio, 2016)
  • Derek Wall, The Sustainable Economics of Elinor Ostrom: Commons, Contestation and Craft

Films & Videos


Lead image by Nullfy; additional images by Michel Desbiens, Jaap Joris and Michael Dunne.

This post was originally published in Bollier.org. You can find complementary material at Anna Grear’s site.

1 Comment Re-imagine the Future: A List of Resources for Commoning

  1. AvatarMichel Bauwens

    Some of the reactions to the first video here are about the gender imbalance. David Bollier explained to us that two female invitees fell unexpectedly ill during the single studio day (the only day affordable within the budget) that was slated, so the end result was un-intentional and due to ‘force majeure’.

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