4.3.3 Economic narratives

Helpful prior knowledge and learning objectives

Helpful prior learning:


Learning objectives:

Imagine living in a village where a story spreads that water is scarce—not enough for everyone’s needs. How would you feel? What actions might you and others take if your household struggled to cook, stay clean, or tend the garden?

Now imagine the same village, but this time the story is that water is sufficient, - there is enough for everyone’s needs. How would this change how you feel and act?

Photograph of someone washing their hands in water

Figure 1. How would stories about water scarcity or water sufficiency affect how you behave with others in the community?

(Credit: Safari Consoler, Pexels licence)

How do current economic narratives threaten commoning?

This simple thought experiment shows the power of economic narratives—stories repeated in education, politics, media, and conversations that shape our worldviews of the economy and our role in it. 

Dominant narratives today support market power while undermining commoning. Four of those narratives are outlined below.

Narrative 1: Resources are scarce and humans are selfish and competitive

A key economic narrative is that the things we want and need are nearly scarce, there is not enough. Scarcity implies both that resources are limited AND that human needs and wants are unlimited. These two assumptions support the idea that humans must inevitably compete for resources. The entire discipline and methodology of mainstream economics is based on these assumptions, but we should question them.

Some resources, like fossil fuels, are naturally limited. Others, however, are made artificially scarce. For example, many businesses make their products scarce by limiting access through copyright or patent laws that protect their ownership and exclusive use and sale. Making resources and products scarce through enclosure (Section 4.3.2) gives businesses more power to raise prices and earn more profit (Section 3.2.4).  

Photograph of people standing in line at an Apple store

Figure 2. The scarcity narrative shifts power in favour of producers, as consumers compete for their products or the resources that producers control

(Credit: Rob DiCaterino, CC BY 2.0)

This scarcity narrative harms commoning in two ways:

Photograph of hands reaching for a pile of coins

Figure 3. Scarcity narratives claim humans are selfish and competitive, but scarcity is often a deliberate strategy to raise prices/profits and develop exclusive brands.

(Credit: Ole, licenced from Adobe Stock)

Narrative 2: Endless economic growth is necessary for the good life

The narrative of endless economic growth builds on the idea of unlimited human needs and wants. It argues that we  must expand the output of the economy constantly to try to meet these demands, producing more goods and creating more wealth, regardless of where that wealth goes or the impact on Earth’s systems.

Commoners, by contrast, focus on meeting real human needs while protecting and regenerating resources. When resources are shared, they are more likely to be used and managed fairly, with the goal of sufficiency and human wellbeing. In contrast, the endless growth narrative pushes profit-maximising businesses and states to exploit Earth’s  resources beyond their limits.

Aerial photograph of a city

Figure 4. The economic growth narrative drives the rapid depletion of resources that could be sustainably managed through commoning

(Credit: By laurent, Pexels licence)

Narrative 3: Business output and cost efficiency should be a priority

Efficiency refers to the ratio of inputs to outputs of a process. In business, cost efficiency means using the low cost inputs (resources) to produce high value outputs (products). Output efficiency focuses on quantities - use few  inputs/resources to produce high output/product.

Efficiency is important for sustainability. For example, farming with  less water or energy benefits ecosystems.  However, focusing narrowly on cost efficiency can harm ecosystems. Large-scale industrial farming, for instance, lowers input costs by planting monocultures, using chemical fertilisers and keeping large numbers of animals in confined spaces. This approach drains soil nutrients, reduces biodiversity, pollutes ecosystems, and causes animal suffering. 

In contrast, commoners have a closer connection to the resources they steward. They balance output and cost efficiency with other priorities, such as soil health, humane practices, and community well-being. Unlike businesses that aim to maximise profit, commoners prioritise resilience and shared responsibility.

Photograph of an indoor facility full of chickens

Figure 5. Confining animals in limited space lowers costs and increases food output, but causes suffering, disease, and pollution.

(Credit: Mark Stebnicki, Pexels licence)

Narrative 4: Privatisation is the best way to manage resources

Privatisation transfers resources from shared or public ownership to private hands. Privatisation is another word for enclosure (Section 4.3.2). Once privatised, these resources become private property, controlled exclusively by their owner who can charge a price for its use.

Supporters of privatisation argue it encourages efficient use of resources because private owners have incentives to maximise profits. These arguments about privatisation and its benefits go hand-in-hand with narratives about scarcity, selfishness, growth, and efficiency. 

However, privatization threatens commoning by concentrating control of essential resources in the hands of a few people. This restricts people’s access to vital resources, undermines community ties because commoning is no longer practised, and reinforces financial and political power of those who control resources.

A cartoon of a woman pumping water from a pump shaped like an Indian rupee symbol

Figure 6. When common resources like land or water are privatised, access is restricted to those who can afford to pay, breaking down the community's ability to manage the resource collectively

(Credit: KN Balraj)

To counter these narratives, we need to embrace and share alternative stories. The logic of commoning offers a different perspective, emphasising sufficiency, sharing, cooperation, and regeneration. By questioning dominant assumptions, we can recognise the power of community-led solutions that prioritize long-term well-being over short-term profit.

Activity 4.3.3

Concept: Power

Skills: Thinking skills (critical thinking)

Time: varies, depending on the option

Type: Individual, pairs, or small group


Option 1: How are the economic narratives linked?

Time: 30 minutes

The dominant economic narratives introduced in this section start with scarcity. But it is possible to build an alternative set of narratives that support commoning, by starting with the concept of sufficiency.



Option 2 - Economic narratives and power - causal loops and feedback practise

Time: 30 minutes


Economic narratives often benefit the people who have economic power. They can increase their social power over education, media and politics, the areas that spread and amplify economic narratives. These narratives help increase the power of already powerful people even further in a reinforcing feedback loop.


When you finish the causal loop, consider these questions:

Click on the arrow to reveal a completed causal loop diagram with feedback

Option 3: The role of language in supporting worldviews

Time: 25-30 minutes

In the following 5-minute video, commons expert Silke Helfrich explains that the way we talk (or don’t) about the commons is a significant challenge to commoning. She says that language has made commoning “invisible, unspeakable, unthinkable”.


Silke Helfrich 5/6 - The Challenges for the Commons

Leuphana Digital School



Ideas for longer activities and projects are listed in Subtopic 4.5 Taking action

Checking for understanding

Further exploration

Sources


Bollier, D. and Helfrich, S. (2019). Free, Fair and Alive: The Insurgent Power of the Commons. Gabriola Island: New Society Publishers.

Bollier, D. (2025). Think Like a Commoner, 2nd edition. Gabriola Island: New Society Publishers. https://www.thinklikeacommoner.com/

Helfrich, S. (2014, February 7). Silke Helfrich 5/6 - The Challenges for the Commons - Leuphana Digital School [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/IwNr4dED1U0

New Economic Thinking. (2019, February 6). Unlimited wants, limited resources | How & how NOT to do economics with Robert Skidelsky [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CifipPzK7ao

Terminology (in order of appearance)

Link to Quizlet interactive flashcards and terminology games for Section 4.3.3 Economic narratives


scarcity: when there is not enough of something

sufficient: when there is enough of something

economic narrative: the stories we tell about how the economy works, how we should study the economy and participate in it

worldview: an all-inclusive outlook on the world held by an individual or group, and through which they make sense of reality and gain knowledge

economy: all the human-made systems that transfer and transform energy and matter to meet human needs and wants

market: a system where people buy and sell goods and services for a price.

state: a system that provides essential public services, and also governs and regulates other economic institutions

commoning: when a group of people self-organise to manage shared resources

fossil fuel: a non renewable energy source including coal, oil, and natural gas, formed over millions of years in the Earth's crust from decomposed plants and animals

copyright: legal ownership of intellectual property with the right to control its reproduction and distribution

patent: the sole right for an inventor to sell and profit from an innovation for a limited time

enclosure: the process that ended traditional rights on common land formerly held in the open field system and restricted the use of land to the owner

power: the ability to influence events or the behaviour of other people

profit: total revenue minus total cost

wealth: the total value (stock) of someone’s assets such as money, house, or investments

social cohesion: the extent to which people in society feel connected to one another and share common values

economic growth: an increase in the total value of goods and services produced in a period of time

profit-maximisation: a business goal that seeks to maximise the difference between revenues earned from selling a product and the costs of production

exploit: using and benefiting from resources; the term is often used negatively to imply using power to take advantage of a situation

cost efficiency: reducing costs of production relative to output

output efficiency: reducing the quantity of inputs relative to the quantity of outputs

sustainability: meeting people’s needs within the means of the planet

energy: the ability to do work or cause change

ecosystem: the interaction of groups of organisms with each other and their physical environment

industrial farming: a way of producing large amounts of crops, by using chemicals and machines

monoculture: when a single crop is grown a given area

chemical fertiliser: human-made nutrients applied to soil or plants to help them grow

biodiversity: the variety of living organisms on Earth

pollution: the presence of a substance that has harmful effects on the environment

steward: to manage or look after something

resilient: able to recover after a disturbance

privatise: to transfer (a business, property or service) from public to private ownership and control

enclosure: the process that ended traditional rights on common land formerly held in the open field system and restricted the use of land to the owner

private property: the ownership of property by private individuals and groups

incentive: something that motivates or encourages someone to do something

commoning: when a group of people self-organise to manage shared resources

power: the ability to influence events or the behaviour of other people

regenerate: the process of restoring and revitalising something