Democracy, Markets and the Commons

* Book: Lukas Peter. Democracy, Markets and the Commons: Towards a Reconciliation of Freedom and Ecology. Transcript, 2021

URL = https://www.transcript-verlag.de/shopMedia/openaccess/pdf/oa9783839454244.pdf

Originally, "a dissertation by the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Zurich in the fall semester 2017"

Contents

ToC:

1. The concept of democracy

1.1 Democracy as a contested concept ..................................................19

1.2 Models of democracy ................................................................ 21

1.3 Foundational and surplus dimensions of the concept of democracy ............................. 23

2. The competitive market and the state

2.1 Hobbes: anarchy, leviathan and the competitive market ............................. 30

2.2 Justifying the market: social order, protection from arbitrary powers and unlimited wealth ......................................... 30

2.3 Self-regulation, limited politics and the open-access market......................... 34

2.4 Economist kings, authoritarian liberalism and structural constraints................. 38

3. Garrett Hardin’s tragedy of the unregulated commons

3.1 The tragedy: maximization strategies and the double C–double P game ......................... 45

3.2 Social institutions against tragedy: privatism or socialism ........................... 48

4. Overcoming the tragedy with the Ostroms

4.1 Collective action and “grim” social dilemmas ........................................ 52

4.2 The tragedy of monocentric orders ................................................. 54

4.3 The tragedy of privatization and the market......................................... 57

4.4 Overcoming tragedy through collective action ...................................... 70

4.5 Self-governing commons with the aid of eight design principles ..................... 75

4.6 Institutional diversity and polycentricity.............................................. 81

4.7 Interim conclusion.................................................................. 85

5. An ecological understanding of the commons

5.1 Nature, language and social relations ............................................... 90

5.2 Concepts of nature and social reality................................................ 93

5.3 Autopoiesis and the interdependent co-creation of reality .......................... 100

5.4 Ecosystems, abundance and natural commons .................................... 106

5.5 Empathy, cooperation and a common(s) reality ..................................... 115

5.6 Ecological freedom, democracy and care............................................ 119

5.7 The civic tradition of ecological democracy and commoning ........................ 130

6. Towards a commons theory of property

6.1 The normative language of goods ................................................. 144

6.2 Common needs, common resources and common property ......................... 148

6.3 Reinterpreting John Locke’s theory of property from a commons perspective ....... 155

6.4 Predistribution: commons in a property-owning democracy ........................ 180

6.5. Consumption goods: individual or common property? .............................. 194

6.6 Interim conclusion................................................................. 205

7. The Role of the State in a Commons-Creating Society

7.1 Preliminary reflections on the state-commons relationship ........................ 207

7.2. Varieties of the state and the role of the commons .................................210

7.3 Public goods versus state-supported commons: housing, health care and education ....216

7.4 Creating commons in a non-ideal world – in and against the state .................. 239

8. Commons and the market

8.1 The market in commons literature ................................................. 252

8.2 Enclosing commons and opening markets ......................................... 256

8.3 The market as a commons......................................................... 260

8.4 Responses to possible critiques of the market commons ........................... 274