Let’s move beyond socialism and capitalism: we need something with more in commons – David Bollier talks to The Mint.
When David Bollier talks about “the commons,” he is not referring to a dusty remnant of medieval England. He means something alive: a social practice, an ethic, and increasingly, a survival strategy.
“I began to realise that the capture of government and politics by the two-party duopoly here in the U.S. was simply corrupted and was not going to deliver transformation,” Bollier recalls of his Washington years in the 1970s and ’80s. Back then, he was an activist for protecting public assets—whether forests, grazing lands, drug research, or the broadcast airwaves—fighting off corporate capture. “By the late 90s, I was disillusioned with conventional liberal politics. The commons made more sense as a discourse, as a worldview, as a set of practices for social transformation.”
The timing was fortuitous. The World Wide Web was emerging, open-source software was taking off, and Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom had begun to show how communities across the globe successfully manage shared resources without centralised control. Bollier, along with several “Washington refugees,” as he calls them, turned their attention to developing the commons as an alternative to the sterile binary of capitalism versus socialism.
Not just another club
Mainstream economics starts from the assumption that people are self-interested utility maximisers who create value through exchange. Bollier sees that as a distortion of history. “Over millennia, as indigenous peoples have shown us, humans are prone to cooperation. We self-organise, negotiate, and work out rules. This was being replicated online almost spontaneously through open-source projects, blogs, and wikis.”
Commons, he argues, offer more than efficiency — they offer liberation.
Commons, he argues, offer more than efficiency—they offer liberation. “You can have autonomy, control, and humane relationships, rather than have everything reduced to market transactions. And the more you look, the more examples you find.”
The comparison with clubs is tempting, but Bollier sees differences. “Clubs and commons may both have conviviality and shared purpose. But clubs can be highly tribal and exclusionary. Commons have semi-permeable membranes—they interact with the wider world in more cosmopolitan ways while protecting their operational integrity from outsider interference. In digital spaces, there is no “free rider” problem. The more participants you have, the more value is created. Think Wikipedia or open source software.”
Still, commons are not immune to hierarchy or exclusion. “Some forest or water commons in the Global South remain patriarchal. The commons is not magic pixie dust. But it is a framework for people with shared needs to mutualise benefits in a participatory way.”
From hobby to lifeline
Bollier has been writing on the commons for nearly 25 years, notably through his long-running blog. The visibility of the idea has ebbed and flowed. The early 2000s brought excitement around Creative Commons and digital culture. More recently, the pandemic has given the concept new traction. “When people saw mutual aid groups spring up, they became more aware of how interdependent we are,” he says.
Commons, he argues, offer more than efficiency — they offer liberation.
Critics suggest commoning is a middle-class hobby. Bollier accepts the point but insists the picture is more complex. “Historically, commons have been survival mechanisms for the poor. African-Americans in the U.S. built co-ops when excluded from markets or victimised by racism. In the Global South, commons remain essential, especially in preserving autonomy in the face of neoliberal trade regimes. The problem is the lack of infrastructures to make commoning easier. That’s what needs support.”
He adds that the middle classes in the West now face their own survival pressures. “Private equity and financialisation are hollowing out the real economy. It’s not some genteel sideline — commons are becoming necessary.”
For Bollier, the future lies less in attempting to reform existing political institutions than in building what Czech dissident, Václav Havel, once called a “parallel polis.” “Negotiating with the state through parties or nonprofit activism is usually blocked or co-opted,” he argues. “So people are developing horizontal systems of collaboration to build a parallel social economy that can support commoning and make markets more accountable. Bioregional movements are one example, relocalisation another.”
Climate change makes this not optional but urgent. “Global supply chains are brittle. We need resilient local systems. That also means reducing consumption—degrowth is essential if we’re to avoid climate collapse.” Bollier borrows the phrase “islands of coherence” to describe these emerging systems. Even small examples, he believes, can influence larger patterns by demonstrating viable alternatives.
Building tomorrow’s survival kit
The “island” analogy raises questions. What happens if global systems collapse while millions in cities stream towards these islands of functional provisioning? History offers sobering precedents: when the Soviet Union imploded, rural communities fared better than cities, but starvation was widespread. Bollier concedes the point. “Climate migration is inevitable. Reintegration will be a challenge. But stable local systems can incubate place-based cultures of cooperation and resilience. They prepare us for the future better than dependence on global trade.”
Climate migration is inevitable. Reintegration will be a challenge.
The debate touches on collapse theories popularised by writers such as Jem Bendell. Should commoning be seen as an adjunct to political struggle, or the primary focus? Bollier refuses the binary. “It’s not either/or. However, putting all energy into resurrecting the left to seek change within a state-capitalist framework as it currently exists won’t work. The affordances for change aren’t there. A parallel polis gives us a vision of integrity and sovereignty, as well as functional alternatives now. And that strengthens political negotiations later.”
This vision scales up in the concept of bioregioning: designing economies that are integrated with landscapes, water systems, forests, and wildlife. “It’s about enlarging the vision. Not just building a one-off commons, but aligning design with larger, particular ecologies.”
In the end, Bollier’s case is less about nostalgia than necessity. Commons, he insists, are not utopias but staging areas. They acknowledge limits, cultivate interdependence, and rebuild trust in self-governing capacity. “Our biggest challenge,” he says, “is to stop treating humanity as separate from the rest of life on Earth. Commons help us become relational again — with each other and with nature. They are not salvation. But they’re how we begin.”
The full interview can be viewed here. This article was created with AI assistance.
