Saturday, February 2, 2013

The Commons movement; another way to look at the economy

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/02/01-3

"The commons movement is a reaction to exploitative free market capitalism. It rejects the notion that resources, spaces and other assets are purely a means to wealth. It condemns the privatization of public works, such as the parking meters in Chicago, which allows the sovereign wealth fund that controls it to increase the rates.
When an economy allocates wealth to private entities, Bollier says, those property rights inevitably get consolidated until a few large institutions control its means.

Instead, he says, we need to protect the commons with rules that bar individual ownership of that property. It is not, however, a space that is left as a free-for-all; it still has regulations and state recognition that prevent private groups from exploiting it."

This is where you gauge the value of your economy not on some amount of goods bought and sold over a year, but how well the community is doing.

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