Consider one or more of the following questions to reflect on at the end of Subtopic 4.4. Discuss with another student or in a small group, or record (written, audio, video) your response.
How has studying the commons changed the way you think about how people can organise themselves to meet human needs?
Do you think it will be possible to organise commoning related to large-scale global shared resources, like Earth’s atmosphere or oceans? What holds us back?
Many people in market-based economies think that giving legal personhood to nature is an odd idea, a step too far. To what extent does it change the way you think about legal personhood for nature to know that our legal systems already do this for corporations?
In market-based activities producers make products or services for people who use them and those people pay a price for the product. Commons often are financed by the community members who manage and benefit from resources, products and services created in that system. So what’s the difference in the community’s relationships in each type of provisioning institution?