by David Bollier
David Bollier: news and perspectives on the commons
April 2nd, 2014
It
is always refreshing to read Peter Linebaugh’s writings on the commons
because he brings such rich historical perspectives to bear, revealing
the commons as both strangely alien and utterly familiar. With the added
kick that the commoning he describes actually happened, Linebaugh’s
journeys into the commons leave readers outraged at enclosures of long
ago and inspired to protect today’s endangered commons.
This was my response, in any case, after reading Linebaugh’s latest book, Stop, Thief! The Commons, Enclosures and Resistance (Spectre/PM
Press), which is a collection of fifteen chapters on many different
aspects of the commons, mostly from history. The book starts out on a
contemporary note by introducing “some principles of the commons”
followed by “a primer on the commons and commoning” and a chapter on
urban commoning. For readers new to Linebaugh, he is an historian at
the University of Toledo, in Ohio, and the author of such memorable
books as The Magna Carta Manifesto and The London Hanged.
Stop, Thief!
is organized around a series of thematic sections that collect
previously published essays and writings by Linebaugh. One section
focuses on Karl Marx (“Charles Marks,” as he was recorded in British
census records) and another on British enclosures and commoners
(Luddites; William Morris; the Magna Carta; “enclosures from the bottom
up”). A third section focuses on American commons (Thomas Paine;
communism and commons) before concluding with three chapters on First
Nations and commons.
This sampler reflects Linebaugh’s eclectic
passions as a historian. They are united by the overarching themes of
commoning, enclosure and resistance, as the subtitle puts it. This
framework makes for some unanticipated historical excursions, such as
the chapter on the theft of forest products and abolition of forest
rights in 19th century Germany, which made quite an impression on Karl
Marx. Another chapter – Linebaugh’s foreword to E.P. Thompson’s book on
William Morris – situates Morris as a communist, artist, prophet and
revolutionary.
Some of the historical explorations journey into
areas that are frankly obscure to me, so I don’t always appreciate the
fuller context and circumstances. But this is part of the pleasure and
fun — to be introduced to new areas of commons history. Linebaugh
describes a host of historical commons that have receded into the mists
of history:
“the Irish knowledge commons, the agrarian commons of
the Nile, the open fields of England enclosed by Acts of Parliament,
the Mississippi Delta commons, the Creek-Chickasaw-Cherokee commons, the llaneros and pardos of Venezeula, the Mexican communidades de los naturales,
the eloquently expressed nut-and-berry commons of the Great Lakes, the
customs of the sikep villagers of Java, the subsistence commons of Welsh
gardeners, the commons of the street along the urban waterfront, the
lascars crammed in dark spaces far from home, and the Guyanese slaves
building commons and community….”
I only wish that some of these passing references had been elaborated upon; they conjure up exotic lost worlds unto themselves.
It
is fitting that the concluding chapter explores the “invisibility of
the commons” – our problem now, as then. Linebaugh notes how such
astute minds as George Orwell, William Wordsworth and C.L.R. James
failed to see the commons as commons in their times. Since then,
scholarship has helped to illuminate the importance of customary rights,
of grazing commons, and of indigenous commons, notes Linebaugh. “What
is gained from seeing them as commoning?” he asks. “An answer arises in
the universality of expropriation, and a remedy to these crimes must be
found therefore in reparation for what has been lost and taken.”
