RECLAIMING THE COMMONS
Richard Bocking
An Earth Day discussion for First Unitarian Church of Victoria
April 27, 2003
Once upon a time, nobody owned anything. Or perhaps, everybody owned everything. The world, and everything in it, was a gigantic "commons." But as human populations grew and spread around the world, the "commons" were enclosed, piece by piece, whether by national or tribal borders agreed upon or enforced by arms, by property lines described in title deeds, by leases granted by governments, by rights claimed, bought, seized or granted to individuals and groups. The "commons," in its many forms, was reduced to fragments, or taken over entirely by others. It’s a process that continues today at an even faster pace, and its consequences touch each of us.
We should define first what we’re talking about, and why it matters. "The Commons" was the name used in mediaeval England to describe parcels of land that were used "in common" by peasant farmers, very few of whom owned enough land to survive upon. Their lives depended upon access to and use of a shared landscape that provided many necessities: grazing land for their oxen or their livestock, water in streams, ponds or wells, wood and fuel from a forest. The land was probably owned by a titled notable, but the importance of the commons to the survival of the population was so obvious that strict rules, recognized by the courts, required landowners to ensure the commons remained available for use by peasant farmers. That access was considered a right, which people took for granted, much as we assume we have a right to breathe air. How the commons was used, and by whom, was governed by the people themselves, who ensured that its benefits were fairly distributed amongst those who required access to it for survival. Property was thought of as a collection of rights as much as it was title to a piece of land; and often those rights took precedence.
But landowners began to imagine how much richer they could be if they could remove "the commoners," and use the land themselves. They began to plant hedges or otherwise bar the way onto lands that had been used and depended upon by nearby families for centuries. This practice became known as "enclosure." Parliament bowed to the will of wealthy landowners and passed the Enclosure Acts, stripping commoners of their property rights. By 1895, about half of one percent of the population of England and Wales owned almost 99 percent of the land. Sheep grazed former common lands, while peasants starved, or were forced into the cities – which is why London was the first city to have a million inhabitants. Some provided labour for the industrial revolution, but tens of thousands of commoners were forced into vagrancy and destitution. In Scotland people were packed onto ships, often at gunpoint, and transported across the ocean to the Americas in conditions often as bad as those on slave ships.
And so "commons" and "enclosure" have become words loaded with significance. The term "commons," derived from that ancient usage in the English countryside, is now applied to those things to which we have rights simply by being members of the human family. The air we breathe, the fresh water we drink, the seas, forests, and mountains, the genetic heritage through which all life is transmitted, the diversity of life itself. There is the commons that humankind has created – language, a wealth of scientific, cultural, and technical knowledge accumulated over the ages, our public universities, our health and education systems, the broadcast spectrum, our public utilities. There are the commons that we have specifically declared to be public assets, like our parks. This church is a "commons" – it is important to us for the values it fosters and the community it provides, but it does not belong to any individual amongst us. It is supported and governed by all of us, together working out how it can best serve our needs and those of the wider community of which we are a part.
A "commons," then, is synonymous with community, cooperation, and respect for the rights and preferences of others.
"Enclosure," on the other hand, refers to exclusion, possession, monopoly, and personal or corporate gain. Just as "enclosure" removed the rights to the commons of peasant farmers before the industrial revolution, Europeans carried the principle of enclosing the commons with them during the era of colonization, declaring any land without institutions or evidence of European –style sovereignty to be Terra Nullius, vacant land – even though the population of the Americas, for example, is estimated to have exceeded 100 million before colonization. Except for tiny inadequate reserves, the land was "enclosed;" that is, restricted for the use of the newcomers, and barred to those who had used it from time immemorial. The process continues today in such places as Indonesia, India, the Amazon, or Africa, where indigenous populations or small farmers see the land they have long occupied enclosed in favour of large scale ranching and farming operations, or for exploitation by mining, oil and logging corporations that frequently destroy the landscape and pollute air and water.
...
http://www.cuc.ca/social_responsibility/environment/reclaiming_commons.htmThe law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
But leaves the greater villain loose
Who steals the common from off the goose.
The law demands that we atone
When we take things we do not own
But leaves the lords and ladies fine
Who take things that are yours and mine.
The poor and wretched don’t escape
If they conspire the law to break;
This must be so but they endure
Those who conspire to make the law.
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
And geese will still a common lack
Till they go and steal it back.
- Anonymous
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