What do we mean by the Commons? Defining, elaborating and then placing this idea into a political and economic context is an essential function of our organization and our campaign.
The Commons courses through us and around us, to us from the past and from us to the future. It is a gift from the universe meant to be universal; bequethed to us by billions of years of extaordinary cosmic and biological evolution, as well as thousands of years of individual and concerted human enterprise. It is precious in its most minute expressions and awesome in its majestic. Each and every manifestation, writ large or small, has not only value by its usefullness, but more importantly, if part of nature, an inherent worth and right to exist without being interfered with, a freedom to be and to become.
We speak of the air, of the water, of the soil, and we speak of language itself. Mathematics and medicine; mice, music and e-mail; the carbon cycle and the bicycle; eco-systems and systems of justice; democracy; photographs and photosynthesis; footballs, philosophy, farmers’ markets, stock markets; hardwoods and hard-drives; wheels and whales. We did not earn these things we inherited them, taken together they constitute a wealth immeasurable.
What we must understand and take the measure of is ourselves, if we are to convey the Commons forward to the generations that follow, relatively intact. So much life and possibility has been damaged already by ignorance, greed and shortsightness, and much more is threatened. The critical institutions of man, of which we all share ownership and stewardship duties, are not responding to the deepening crises enveloping both people and the natural world – they must be rethought and reformed. We have right now an unprecedented responsibility, unasked of generations past.
Some things we own individually, as it should be, but the greatest of things, these things described here as part of our Commons, belong to all of humanity. We are not only owners of these treasures but also their trustees; and not only to our children and their children, but to all the myriad forms of life that now depend on our good judgment and good deeds, many for their very survival.
A great resource and forum on the topic 