Toward A Political Economy Of The Commons

Since Garrett Hardin published The Tragedy of the Commons in 1968, critics have argued that population growth and capitalism contribute to overuse of natural resources and degradation of the global environment. They propose coercive, state-centric solutions. This book offers an alternative view. Employing insights from new institutional economics, the authors argue that property rights, competitive markets, polycentric political institutions, and social institutions such as trust, patience and individualism enable society to conserve natural resources and mitigate harms to the global environment.

Integral Community moves the transformation journey for enterprises and society on from the stages covered in earlier books in Gower's Transformation and Innovation Series, which describe a new macro-economic framework and which have examined alternative development with different local communities, bringing wide cultural perspectives to practical implementation of authentic or integral development. Here, the authors argue that there are two major fields of force prevailing in today's world. The one reflects our common heritage, whereby East and West, North and South are coming ever closer together - the global commons. The other reflects local and national singularity, where the notion of feeding off ancient local heritage and talent is key. They also identify four different culturally laden worldviews as Southern - humanistic, Eastern - holistic, Northern - rational, and Western - pragmatic. The enterprise and social innovation in Africa with which Lessem's co-authors are involved provides an object lesson in the sort of differentiation and integration needed in order to operate, socio-economically, with local identity and global integrity. It provides in this case a 'Southern' worldview background against which to examine communally based self-sufficiency; culturally based developmental economy; knowledge based social economy; and finally, the move towards what the authors describe as a living economy. All illustrated through a rural case, Chinyika, with which they have been intimately involved, whereby 100,000 have become self sufficient over the past five years. Integral Community should be read by academics and students of business, economics, development studies and agriculture, and by policy makers, particularly those concerned with the developing world in general and Africa in particular.

In the last two hundred years, the earth has increasingly become the private property of a few classes, races, transnational corporations, and nations. Repeated claims about the "tragedy of the commons" and the "crisis of capitalism" have done little to explain this concentration of land, encourage solution-building to solve resource depletion, or address our current socio-ecological crisis. The Commons in an Age of Uncertainty presents a new explanation, vision, and action plan based on the idea of commoning the land. The book argues that by commoning the land, rather than privatising it, we can develop the foundation for prosperity without destructive growth and address both local and global challenges. Making the land the most fundamental priority of all commons does not only give hope, it also opens the doors to a new world in which economy, environment, and society are decolonised and liberated.

The power of capital is the power to target our attention, mould market-ready identities, and reduce the public realm to an endless series of choices. This has far-reaching implications for our psychological, physical and spiritual well-being, and ultimately for our global ecology. In this consumer age, the underlying teachings of Buddhist mindfulness offer more than individual well-being and resilience. They also offer new sources of critical inquiry into our collective condition, and may point, in time, to regulatory initiatives in the field of well-being. This book draws together lively debates from the new economics of transition, commons and well-being, consumerism, and the emerging role of mindfulness in popular culture. Engaged Buddhist practices and teachings correspond closely to insights in contemporary political philosophical investigations into the nature of power, notably by Michel Foucault. The 'attention economy' can be understood as a new arena of struggle in our age of neoliberal governmentality; as the forces of enclosure – having colonized forests, land and the bodies of workers – are now extended to the realm of our minds and subjectivity. This poses questions about the recovery of the 'mindful commons': the practices we must cultivate to reclaim our attention, time and lives from the forces of capitalization. This is a valuable resource for students and scholars of environmental philosophy, environmental psychology, environmental sociology, well-being and new economics, political economy, environmental politics, the commons and law, as well as Buddhist theory and philosophy.

Tackles one of the most enduring and contentious issues of positive political economy: common pool resource management.

Events such as the global financial crisis have helped reveal that the drivers and contours of governance on a national and international level remain a mystery in many respects. This is so despite the ever-increasing complexity and sophistication in the management and understanding of economic, legal and political spheres of global society. Set in this context, this timely Research Handbook is the first to explicitly address the constitutive relationship between law and political economy. With scholarly contributions from diverse disciplinary and geographic backgrounds, this authoritative book provides an expansive overview of the legal architecture of the global political economy. It covers, in three parts, topics surrounding money and markets, the relations of organization, and commodities, land and resources. Scholars and policymakers as well as undergraduate and postgraduate law students interested in the intersection of socio-political, economic, and legal dynamics of governance will find this book a thought-provoking and insightful resource.