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The Commons

The concept of the commons is an idea that all the wealth in a society should belong to

everyone rather than to one particular person. All the common resources belong to the public,

and it is the responsibility of everyone to protect and take care of them. Examples of the

commons include wildlife, oceans, public spaces, air, and scientific research. An individual can

use the commons, and this is primarily why all these resources have to be sustainably managed

and protected. The greatest strength of the commons is that it has been inherited from one

generation to another and as more people utilize the asset, its value increases as well. That is the

manner in which the commons worked throughout history

. The primary aim of the commons

was to foster, strengthen, and enhance democratic, economic, humanitarian, and cultural

relationships. Some of the surviving remnants of the commons, apart from natural resources,

include libraries, creative works, and public works among others

However, everything began to change with the introduction of the market economy.

People started using it as a measurement tool for the worth of a person and for the wealth that he

or she possessed. People became greedy and started taking common resources and converting

"Common," "commons," or "common lands," in a strictly legal sense may be defined as lands in which rights of

common exist. Standing alone, the terms are ambiguous, but the surrounding circumstances may be sufficient to

remove the ambiguity. In its popular sense the word "common" is used to denote pieces of ground left open for

common or public use for the convenience and accommodation of the inhabitants of the town or municipality, and a

similar meaning has been given to the word "commons" as used in statutes.

A "right of common" is a right or privilege, which several persons have to the produce of the lands or waters of

another. It is distinguishable from an estate in common in that it is an incorporeal hereditament and is a profit

which a man has in the land of another, while an estate in common is a corporeal hereditament and is the land itself.

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them to private property (Hardin 154). Critical and vital elements of society, ranging from

ecosystems to public services, began being controlled by a few wealthy people.

The common lands concept stipulated that some part of the land would be left for public

use instead of being privately owned. However, with time, assimilation of the common law

merged with the concept of the common rights. When the commons were first created, all

members of a particular society could share a common land, and they were all equally entitled to

it. People could graze their cattle or plant crops on these lands.

In the United Kingdom, the introduction of the Commons Registration Act in 1965 gave

recognition to common lands but stipulated that it was not subject to the rights of the commons.

Thus, the most of the common lands became privately owned

. As for Central and South

America, current statistics indicate that the number of indigenous people is more than 60 million.

Most of these people depend on land for the sustenance of their livelihoods (Dietz et al. 1910).

Privatization of land has resulted in most of these people suffering from high levels of poverty.

The land tenure arrangements intensified the problems since most of them failed to protect the

communal land. Most of the indigenous and fertile lands were taken and used for social

purposes. Plantations were established to supply goods and raw materials for major companies

that were growing their production. Unfortunately, these retrogressive land state policies are still

in existence today.

When many nations gained independence, they tried to abolish communal land reforms.

The goal of these reforms was to ensure that land was fairly redistributed, but it still ended up

being privately owned. No one was concerned about the reduction of poverty or peasant farming;

everything was geared towards its commercialization. Many land reforms in Britain and America

A more complete statement would be that the governments designated certain lands as common, recognized as

commons other lands, and confirmed title in still other lands. See Act of June 13, 1812, 2 Stat. 748 which confirmed

titles to "town or village lots, out lots, common field lots and commons.

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had little to none redistributive effects since commercial landowners were able to retain and

control most of the fertile land. The indigenous people were left with small pieces of land

situated in unfertile areas

. Increase in the population further subdivided these small portions of

land as the little land was divided amongst the children of the family.

The “enclosure” is a concept which describes the case in which small pieces of land are

joined together to form one large firm. When it becomes one piece of land, it ceases to become

common land, and the landowner controls how it is used. This concept was used in Britain to end

arable farming. Enclosure and land privatization became widespread in the 16th century; since

then, most common lands became privately owned. The Enclosure Act was one of the laws

which forced enclosure. Many neo-Marxists state that rich people used such laws to privatize

public land.

To date, it is estimated that about 40,000 land millionaires own about more than 50% of

Britain’s land. The 40,000 millionaires only account for about 0.07% of the population. The rest

(99%) live and survive in the other half. The enclosure has propagated these extreme and high

levels of land concentration.

In 1968, Garett Hardin wrote an article titled “The Tragedy of the Commons.” The article

talks about current issues facing common property. Hardin argues that common land ownership,

land privatization, and enclosure present us with the best tool with which people can understand

how other shared resources have been enclosed as well. The author also talks about intellectual

property and water and air pollution by the wealthy companies (Hardin 1246). He states that the

high fences that were constructed to show that land was enclosed and privately owned during the

enclosure system times have been shadowed metaphorically by the many different forms of

There is some suggestion that several Indian tribes were entirely unconcerned with ownership of real property. For

example, the system of affamial avoidances of the Apache made it necessary to separate the houses sufficiently that

disputes over land use and ownership were eliminated.

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privatization of property in existence to them. The author also touches on the issue of the

environment, asking who owns the global resources that we currently have.

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Annotated BibliographyOstrom, Elinor. Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions

for Collective Action.

Cambridge University Press, 2016.

Ostrom Elinor was the first to use the phrase “common-pool resources” in 1990. She

developed eight strategies through which the problems of the commons could be solved.

The first one was that common pool resources needed to have defined boundaries to

prevent annexation by the rich and powerful. The second principle was that no

congruence existed between the resource environment and its governance structure. The

third principle was that decisions had to be made through collective-choice arrangements

that made sure that allocation of resources was fair and equitable. The fourth one was that

rules had to be enforced through active monitoring. The fifth principle was that all

violators of common rules had to be punished with graduated fines and sanctions. The

sixth was that all conflicts had to be addressed with resolution strategies that were less

costly and easily accessible to members of the society. The seventh principle was that the

higher-level authorities had to recognize and allow the right of the resource appropriators

to govern themselves. The eighth one was that when it came to abundant common-pool

resources, the organization and enforcement of rules had to be done through several

layers of nested enterprises.

Ostrom, Elinor, Roy Gardner, and James Walker. Rules, Games, and Common-Pool

Resources. University of Michigan Press, 1993.

Three years later after introducing the common-pool resources concept, Ostrom and

several other authors wrote a book which elaborated on the ideals of common-pool

resources. In this book, the game theory is applied in making predictions with regards to

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the usage of common-pool resources by different groups. However, most of the theories

are scientific and touch on several vital issues concerning conservationism, pollution, and

privatization of land.

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Works Cited

Dietz, Thomas, Elinor Ostrom, and Paul C. Stern. “The Struggle to Govern the Commons.”

Science, vol. 302, no. 5652, 12 Dec. 2003, pp. 1907–1912.

Hardin, Garett. “The Tragedy of the Commons.” Science, vol. 162, no. 3859, pp. 1243–1248.

Kopelman, Shirli. “The Effect of Culture and Power on Cooperation in Commons Dilemmas:

Implications for Global Resource Management.” Organizational Behavior and Human

Decision Processes, vol. 108, no. 1, 2003, pp.153–63.

Ostrom, Elinor. Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action.

Cambridge University Press, 2016.

Ostrom, Elinor, Roy Gardner, and James Walker. Rules, Games, and Common-Pool

Resources. University of Michigan Press, 1993.

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