I want to provide an important response, however.

The statement: “But it is beyond any doubt that we do need a state” is not “beyond any doubt” at all. The current Westphalian nation-state is a historically late entrant into the ways and means of organizing civilization. Plenty of political scientists are questioning whether or not it has outlived its usefulness.

On a similar note, my own paper “Panarchy: Governance in the Network Age” asks a different question, namely, this: If, in order to remain a viable political institution, the “state” has to change so much that it no longer possesses the essential qualities of the traditional/current “state,” then is it not linguistically inappropriate to treat that change as minor?

My eventual conclusion was: “It may be that for the state to continue to participate effectively it would have to overcome its own nature, or state-ness, and in so doing would no longer be a state in any real sense.”

Usually the problem lies in people’s failure to understand that the state, per se, is already a commons. It is a question of putting the cart before the horse. In other words, commons are not secured by laws and government, government is secured by the commons.

As Hannah Arendt famously noted, without a “common” there is no power by which to secure anything anyway, merely totalitarianism. Power is simply that which exists when people come together and constitute a common.

Dear Francine, Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Sorry to be late with my reflections concerning your questions about Commons. Thank you for crutinising the state of the art of the debates.

In some regards the commons initiatives are comparable to social movements: it’s not possible to identify one theoretical context, it’s composed by different approaches. And indeed these approaches range from anti-capitalist positions (Houtart, Negri/Hart et.al.) to positions defining Commons as an assimilated part of future capitalism (Rifkin et.al). The direction we prefer is still open – and openness in my experience should be one of the basic characteristics of Commons. At least we shouldn’t fall back in sterile ideological disputes and reflect carefully the theoretical challenges, which the development of Commons is bringing to light. To create an open space for theoretical and strategic debates today is even more difficult than ever (compared, for example,. to the development of workers’ movements) because of the incredible diversity of Commons initiatives and their markedly practical character. Houtart in his basic text tried to give a kind of methodology with four general dimensions of Commons: nature, production of life’s necessities, generalization of democracy, instituting interculturalism.

Commons initiatives so far are pure practice. I would characterise them as acts of resistance against destruction of basic needs of humankind: nature, clean water and air, access to land and urban living conditions and new forms of social housing (do we really accept the growth of ghettos and slums in urban environments?) knowledge, access to technologies, platform-cooperativism and many others. But what do all these different initiatives have in common? Yes, there is something; I think there are– or should be – some common principles: transparency, democratic rules and openness to all who want to participate in concrete and coherent action. This makes the difference to traditional tribes where social control and exclusive rules are virulent: Commons are inclusive.

You are questioning a contradiction between equal rights for all and general social protection systems on the one side and acting in Commons communities on the other. I don’t see necessarily such a contradiction because of the different societal dimensions: there are the specific local activities answering to urgent needs and there are those Commons overarching the specific local or regional needs. The transformative social protection schemes and Digital Commons show this dimension. The struggle for clean water is another example. There are local, regional and national initiatives – and there is the UN-declaration “Water as Human Right”. It is a characteristic of the overarching Commons that they refer to human rights: this is the case for the South-East-Asian initiatives on transformative social protection schemes, which refer directly to the economic human rights in the UN-Human-Rights Declaration and it is relevant for the Digital Commons and the access to knowledge: the “Treaty of Marrakesh”, which guarantees access for visually handicapped and deaf people to knowledge is a step in this direction.

Human Rights are the universal criterion for collective and individual behaviour. As such they are not legally binding – it’s up to states to make them binding. But what we know since their declaration in 1948: non-respect or violation of human rights have no longer any legitimation and can’t be hidden.

The spirit of human rights inspired some years ago Antonio Salamanca from IAEN Ecuador and others to present an outline for a Universal Charter of Commons. But different from the time when Bolivia presented the resolution on water as human right to the UN General Assembly, there are no more progressive governments to promote such an ambitious project today. The text is circulating in different world regions, and François Houtart told me it may still take time to mature the project.

There was hope on another level, when after years of debates an Intergroup on Commons was initiated in 2015 in the European Parliament with participation of members from different groups. But after an impressive session in Brussels with the participation of many NGOs the project fell asleep – just occasionally there is a short gathering of one hour or so announced during the Strasbourg plenary weeks. None of the participating groups or members seems to be able to put some working capacity into this project. It’s really disappointing: the chance to develop an initiative report, which the Parliament could vote on during this legislative period is running short. Furthermore no real debate between activists and politicians was initiated. It’s a lost opportunity.

Yes, there is a need for action on the political level. Commons have to be secured by principle and by law. And this would be the challenge.

Yours, Birgit