* Paper: PETER LINEBAUGH — MEANDERING ON THE SEMANTICAL-HISTORICAL PATHS OF COMMUNISM AND COMMONS. The Commoner. Winter 2010.

Peter Linebaugh, the great historian of the commons, has written an interesting historical essay on the inter-relationship of these two contested terms.

From the conclusion:

“In the 1840s, then, ‘communism’ was the new name to express the revolutionary aspirations of proletarians . It pointed to the future, as in ‘historic tasks’. In contrast, the ‘commons’ belonged to the past, perhaps to the feudal era, when it was the last-ditch defense against extinction.

Now in the 21st century the semantics of the two terms seems to be reversed with communism belonging to the past of Stalinism, industrialization of agriculture, and militarism, while the commons belongs to an international debate about the planetary future of land, water, and subsistence for all. movements of the common people who have been enclosed and foreclosed but are beginning to disclose an alternative, open future.

…

In conclusion, various forms of commoning, some traditional and some not, provided the proletariat with means of survival in the struggle against capitalism. Commoning is a basis of proletarian class solidarity, and we can find this before, during, and after both the semantic and the political birth of communism.”