Left-Libertarian Adaptation of the Eight Commons Design Principles of Elinor Ostrom

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Discussion

The Usufruct Collective:

"Truly emancipatory commons are distinct from quasi-commons that produce commodities and/or are gated against commoners having mutual-access (Federici, 2018). Given the goals of the self-management of each and all, mutual non-domination, wellbeing for all, and ecological flourishing, Ostrom’s core-design-principles can become more coherent through being remixed with insights from anarchism.

The following adaptation of Ostrom’s rules for managing the commons is informed by libertarian socialism/communism/communalism, organizations and revolutions influenced by libertarian socialism that utilize community assemblies related to common decisions and resources, various commons Ostrom looks at, as well as an expanded history of commoning in multiple modes of subsistence:

  • Participants know they are part of a group and what the group is about (Wilson, 2016).
  • Agreements for sharing and at times rotating labor/work and implementation of decisions as well as for sharing the fruits thereof (Kropotkin, 1906, Sixth Commission of the EZLN, 2016, Ostrom, 2021, Usufruct Collective, 2022). People can co-create a cornucopia where there is more than enough for all or otherwise agree to specific ways of distributing less abundant fruits of re/production according to needs.
  • Direct collective decision making by participants through deliberation. For there to be self-management of each and all, there must also be mutual non-domination. By extension, community assemblies related to the commons should utilize direct, participatory, and non-hierarchical forms of democracy (Bookchin, 2005b).
  • Organizational transparency that allows participants to mutually-monitor the commons (Atkins, Wilson, Hayes, 2019). This can happen through the process of co-managing and interacting with the commons, collective action, living in community with others, relevant accounting/calculation as needed, and availability of relevant information to participants.
  • Graduated defense against domination and exploitation such as: informal social disapproval, self-defense and defense of others as needed, and recourse to expelling someone from a particular collective (through deliberation, assembly, and due process) in response to the most extreme violations of the commons and freedoms of persons (Boehm, 2001, Ostrom, 2021, Usufruct Collective, 2023).
  • Good-enough conflict resolution such as: people talking directly to each other, mediation to find out how to move forward, dispute resolution to resolve disputes, restorative justice and transformative justice processes for people to repair harm and transform causes thereof, and organization-wide assembly when the conflict is in regards to organizational form and content. (Kaba, 2019, Usufruct Collective, 2023).
  • Communities and participants need sufficient autonomy to organize.
  • The use of co-federation and embedded councils. Community assemblies can co-manage inter-communal commons in a way where policy-making power is held by participants and assemblies directly (Bookchin, 1992, Ocalan, 2014). This enables self-management and mutual aid within and between communities as well as inter-communal management of the commons. Community assemblies can utilize mandated and recallable councils and rotating delegates to implement decisions within the bounds of policies made by community assemblies directly (Bookchin, 1992, 2007, 2018).

The above should be further fleshed out, qualified, and wisely adapted to conditions, needs, and desires of communities and participants. When there are good-enough institutions and agreements for collective action, individuals benefit through the flourishing of the commons and mutually-contributing to the commons– blending self-interest with collective-interest. Although specifically related to common-economics, Ostrom’s core-design-principles and coherent adaptations thereof can be used to reflect upon and develop various self-managed collectives that have shared practices and goals (Wilson, 2016).

The self-management of each and all on every scale requires the flourishing of the commons and related general assemblies."

(https://usufructcollective.wordpress.com/2024/10/22/ostroms-8-rules-of-the-commons-for-anarchists/)

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