The Tapestry of the Commons: Our Perspective

What are the Commons and how can we protect them?

"The Commons" has no one definition. The concept has been used to mean different things to different people and at different times. The Tapestry of the Commons seeks to define the Commons in the most inclusive way. From that definition we envision strategies for protection of the individual components and of the Commons as a whole. A simple definition of the Commons would be "shared by all, owned by none." We see two distinct categories of Commons: Nature and Culture.

Nature is shared by all of the natural world, not just humans. Culture is shared by all humanity, not just inventors or owners. Nature is the basis for all of life and human culture has had a profound effect on the natural world.

We understand that all of nature is interconnected and that humans are a part of nature. And as Thomas Berry says, nature is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects. We therefore propose that nature is not property of any kind. Nature, as a whole and as each of its individual components, has an inherent right to exist. Human beings, a part of the natural commons, have expressed this in our rights as legal persons under law. It is time to extend these legal rights to the rest of the Natural Commons. We see this as the best protection for nature as well as the reflection of the true relationship between humans and rest of the natural world.

The Cultural Commons include all human contributions to our species' development. They are the building blocks of culture and also must be protected from being turned into property. The best way to protect and expand our culture is to allow these commons to be free and open for use by all humans. After a reasonable time, new cultural developments should be put in the public domain. The trend toward longer and longer copyrights and the patenting of parts of nature, like seeds and DNA, should be ended.

Much of our culture consists of stories or mental constructs: sometimes expressed as legal fictions, sometimes as cultural norms. The human mind creates the stories and constructs as a way to deal with the world. As we change the stories we tell ourselves, these cultural ideas will change, allowing us to change our laws to reflect our new stories. Science is rapidly revealing new aspects to our Nature story, while global warming is teaching us that we need to look at our Culture and change the fairy tale we have been telling ourselves about unlimited growth. To stop war, the new story needs to unite instead of divide the peoples of the world. We see the concept of the Commons as an outline for all the new stories we need to tell.

Nature created all humans as equals, but not so long ago our cultural story and legal fiction was that dark-skinned humans were inferior and were legally property. Our story changed to reflect the reality of nature, and so did our law. The same steps allowed women to achieve legal personhood. This is our goal with the commons: to tell the true story so our culture and law can change to better reflect natural truth and cultural aspirations.

So why not just say Nature and Culture? Why use the word Commons? The Latin root of the word Commons is communes, the same as community, communion and communal. Commons expresses a relationship. So does Property or Stewardship or even similar concepts like Public Property, Public Domain or Public Trust. The relationship to nature as property or humans as stewards or trustees is not the same as common sharing. Regarding culture, a commons is non-hierarchical as opposed to a domain or trust or certainly as compared to private property. If words matter to lead our concepts, commons is the closest we can find to express the relationship we hope to foster with nature and culture.

Because it describes relationships and interconnectedness, the concept of the Commons offers a fertile common ground for all the issues people are working on. We can envision all our individual work as a common endeavor, where the many environmental and social justice movements all are important threads in weaving the common tapestry of life. How often have we wished for a vision to unite our work? Because the Commons concept is all about respect and relationship between all parts of nature and culture, and is egalitarian at its deepest core, it may be the unifying principle that can inspire us to work together to save our planet.

We acknowledge that there are many details to be worked out, but this is our perspective. As our thinking on the commons progresses, we expect this perspective to evolve, reflecting our new insights.