Common: On Revolution in the 21st Century

Description

Around the globe, contemporary protest movements are contesting the oligarchic appropriation of natural resources, public services, and shared networks of knowledge and communication. These struggles raise the same fundamental demand and rest on the same irreducible principle: the common. In this exhaustive account, Pierre Dardot and Christian Laval show how the common has become the defining principle of alternative political movements in the 21st century. In societies deeply shaped by neoliberal rationality, the common is increasingly invoked as the operative concept of practical struggles creating new forms of democratic governance. In a feat of analytic clarity, Dardot and Laval dissect and synthesize a vast repository on the concept of the commons, from the fields of philosophy, political theory, economics, legal theory, history, theology, and sociology. Instead of conceptualizing the common as an essence of man or as inherent in nature, the thread developed by Dardot and Laval traces the active lives of human beings: only a practical activity of commoning can decide what will be shared in common and what rules will govern the common's citizen-subjects. This re-articulation of the common calls for nothing less than the institutional transformation of society by society: it calls for a revolution. Cover page Halftitle page Series page Title page Copyright page Epigraph Contents Acknowledgments Preface Introduction The Common: A Political Principle The Tragedy of the Non-Common The Strategic Emergence of the Common 1 Archaeology of the Common Co-Activity as the Basis of Political Obligation The Common: Between Statism and Theology The Reification of the Common The Common: Between the Vulgar and the Universal Common and Praxis Part I The Emergence of the Common 2 The Communist Burden; or Communism Against the Common Communism as “Community of Life” Communism as “Association of Producers” State Communism, or the Bureaucratic Capture of the Common The State-Party and the Imposition of a Productivist Logic The Democratic Common versus the Common of State Production Liberating the Common from its Statist Capture 3 The Great Appropriation and the Return of the “Commons” The New Global “Enclosures” The Paradigm of the “Enclosure of the Commons” A Renewed Struggle Against Neoliberalism Property Rights and Competition Th rough Innovation The Demand for the Commons Against “Intellectual Property” The “Grand Narrative” of the Expropriation of the Commons Imperialism as the Exacerbation of Capitalist Violence “Dispossession” as a Typical Mode of Accumulation for Financial Capitalism The Limits of the “Enclosure” Paradigm 4 Critique of the Political Economy of the Commons “Private Goods” and “Public Goods” The Discovery of “Common Goods” The “Tragedy of the Commons” Debate The Institution as the Heart of the Commons The “Analytical Framework” of the Commons The Limits of the Institutional Analysis of the Commons From One Common to Another Is Knowledge Naturally Common? The “Constitutional Basis” of Knowledge Commons 58 A New General Ethic? “Freedom” and the “Common” The Illusion of “Technological Communism” The “Knowledge Commons” from Capital’s Perspective 5 Common, Rent, and Capital Defining the Common Cognitive Capitalism: Rent and Theft Proudhon: The Common as Spontaneous Social Force Marx: The Historical Production of the Common by Capital Capital’s Common and the Worker’s Common Beyond the Two Models Part II Law and Institution of the Common 6 The Law of Property and the Unappropriable The Activity of “Commoning” (koin ônein) as the Institutionalization of the Common (koinôn) The “Illusion of Archaic Collective Property” 25 The Advent of Proprietary Individualism The Summa Divisio (Supreme Division) Between Public Law and Private Law Public Domain, State Property, and Res Nullius The Use and Administration of the Unappropriable The Primacy of Creative Legal Practice Against the State The Common as “Being-in-Common” and the Common as “Acting-in-Common” 7 Law of the Common and “Common Law” A National Myth: The “Organic Continuity” of Common Law A Foundational Referent: The Magna Carta The Magna Carta: An Unfulfilled Document Custom, Common, Common Law The “War in the Woods” and The Black Act (1723) Custom as a Site of Conflict 8 The “Customary Law of Poverty” A “Law” Contrary to “Rational Law” The “Customs of the Poor” versus the “Customs of the Privileged” What is the Legal Basis for the Customs of the Poor? “Physical Poverty” and “Human Poverty” The “Legal Instinct” of the Poor “Activity” as the Foundation of the Law of the Poor The Irreducible Heterogeneity of the Customs of the Poor The Communism of the Poor: Obstacle or Progress? 9 The Workers’ Common Between Custom and Institution Customs and Institutional Creations Institutionalizing the Collective Force The “Social Constitution” Federalism as Social and Political Organization The “Proletarian Law” The Socialist Cooperation of Mauss and Jaurès Transforming Subjectivity by Transforming Social Practices What Remains of the Workers’ Common? 10 Instituent Praxis The Sociological Reduction of the Institution to the Instituted Institution, Sovereignty, Authority Institution and Constituent Power Instituent Power and Social Imaginary Praxis and Creation Instituent Praxis Praxis as the Co-Institution of Rules Part III Nine Political Propositions POLITICAL PROPOSITION 1 We Must Construct a Politics of the Common Convergence Rather Than Circumvention The Common is the Principle of Social Transformation POLITICAL PROPOSITION 2 Use Rights Must Challenge Property Use and Property “Use” and “Usufruct”: The Classical Model Access, Property, and Time Restrictions The Theory of Property as a “Bundle of Rights” Toward an Expanded Use Right Against the Law of Property POLITICAL PROPOSITION 3 The Common is the Principle of Labor’s Emancipation POLITICAL PROPOSITION 4 We Must Institute Common Work POLITICAL PROPOSITION 5 Economic Associationism is the Pathway to the Society of the Common Can the Social Economy Re-Make Society? POLITICAL PROPOSITION 6 The Common Must Be the Basis of Social Democracy Social and Economic Citizenship POLITICAL PROPOSITION 7 Public Services Must Become Institutions of the Common From “Social Organism” to the Public Institutions of the Common “I comuni per i beni comuni” POLITICAL PROPOSITION 8 The Commons Must be Global Is Humanity a Legal Subject? The Limits to the Globalization of Law Global Public Goods, or, How Not to Change the Frame The “Common Heritage of Humanity”: The Ambiguous Return of “Things in Common” Fundamental Common Rights: A Stalled Dynamic POLITICAL PROPOSITION 9 We Must Institute a Federation of Commons International Federalism The “Federal Republic” “Intra-State” and “Interstate” Federalism The True Scope of the Federal Principle Toward a Double Federation of the “Commons” Constructing a Transnational Political Citizenship Post-Script on Revolution in the Twenty-First Century Reviving the Grandeur of the Idea of “Revolution” Revolution as the “Self-Institution of Society” Instituting the Unappropriable Notes