Preface

Since its first introduction in 1968 by Garret Hardin, the concept of the commons has changed considerably both in terms of its influences and its conceptual content. However, Hardin’s article, The Tragedy of the Commons, gained a wider meaning during the post-1980 neoliberal era. In fact, his approach based on the idea that excluding the commons from property relations would lead to their destruction found its concrete practice in the post-1980’s world. In his 1978 article, Political Requirements for Preserving our Common Heritage, Hardin explicitly writes that there is already a need for ‘a coercive force’ in a crowded world. Thus, as he puts it in the Tragedy of the Commons, he sees the increase in the world’s population to be the main issue and asserts that the only way to preserve the commons is through the forceful limitation of population growth and the inclusion of the commons in private or public ownership. The most prominent objection to Hardin’s interpretation was raised in the work of Elinor Ostrom, who won a Nobel Prize in Economics in 2009. Notwithstanding Ostrom’s critical refutation, the discussion was largely confined to an academic level.

It was in the 1990s, when neoliberal hegemony was established and its negative consequences began to appear on a global scale, that the politics of the commons came onto the agenda of social movements. At a time when market capitalism declared its ultimate victory upon the disintegration of the USSR (the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), firstly natural resources, such as waters and forests, then services like sanitation, water, education, and health began to be commodified and privatized. Objections at a global level were raised to neoliberal policies that were implemented on the assertion of ‘There is no alternative’. In particular, the 1999 World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle, which was blockaded by unions and activists, marked the dawn of a new era of an emergent global anti-capitalist movement. It was during this period that the concept of the commons began to appear. The movements that primarily opposed the commodification of ecological resources, arguing that these resources were commons, proposed that they should be considered external to market relations. And what’s more, these movements gradually went beyond fighting in defence of the commons and began to advocate that those who use the commons and are affected by them should participate in their governance through commoning practices. Opposing the wave of privatization, the politics of the commons later expanded its political sphere by arguing that services such as education and health are the very commons of society. Following the massive, global occupation of the squares, particularly in 2011, the politics of the commons extended its demands concerning the defence of the urban commons and argued that the city itself is a common and thus should be managed by its citizens through commoning practices.

In this collected work, you will find articles that seek to analyze the politics of the commons within this framework. The unifying element of the articles is that they address the potentials of the commons not only as an academic field of study, but also by their inherent potentials and prevailing limitations as regards the anti-capitalist struggle. In addition, these articles chiefly seek to follow the traces of the politics of the commons throughout the social movements in Turkey. This book aims to fill a gap for activists, who not only want to understand the world but also to change it, by providing experiences of social movements and conceptual debates.

The first article is written by Bülent Duru with the title “What are the Commons? On Natural, Urban, Social Commons and their Effects on Urban Social Movements”, in which he discusses the potentials of the politics of the commons. He divides commons into three main categories: natural commons such as air, water, and soil; urban commons such as streets, parks, squares; and social and cultural commons that comprise social facilities such as social security, the internet, and traditions, as well as cultural values such as science, art, and music. Notwithstanding the increasing hegemony of cities, he states that it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish urban commons from rural commons. Duru examines the transformation of these three domains of the commons during the AKP’s rule. He conducts a debate on the possible reasons why movements fighting to defend the social and cultural commons tend to be much weaker than other social movements that have emerged in the field of natural and urban commons. He points to the relationship between the politics of the commons and the working class. He explores the constraints of these movements together with their inherent potentials for an anti-capitalist alternative.