Plunder of the Commons

A vital and incisive solution to many of the problems society faces today—we must reclaim the commons.

We are losing the commons. Austerity and neoliberal policies have depleted our shared wealth; our national utilities have been sold off to foreign conglomerates, social housing is almost non-existent, our parks are cordoned off for private events, and our national art galleries are sponsored by banks and oil companies. This plunder deprives us all of our common rights, recognised as far back as the Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forest of 1217, to share fairly and equitably in our public wealth.

Guy Standing leads us through a new appraisal of the commons, stemming from the medieval concept of common land reserved in ancient law from marauding barons, to his modern reappraisal of the resources we all hold in common—a brilliant new synthesis that crystallises quite how much public wealth has been redirected to the 1% in recent decades through the state-approved exploitation of everything from our land to our state housing, health and benefit systems, to our justice system, schools, newspapers, and even the air we breathe.

Plunder of the Commons proposes a charter for a new form of commoning, of remembering, guarding, and sharing that which belongs to us all, to slash inequality and soothe our current political instability.