The Last Commons

We have progressively privatised all that we once held together in common. Almost everything that was shared now exists merely to be bought and sold. The world of market transactions consumed everything it touched, transforming man into a labouring machine. We retain common proprietership of just one thing.

Our natural environment may be sick, it may be degraded, but it persists stubbornly against the encroachment of capital. Our labour is sold by the hour and our data to anyone who will pay, but the birds have no employer. The sky has no master. The air has no shareholders.

The natural environment remains in common ownership. From the poorest wretch to the richest tycoon, all may look up at the sky and marvel at the cackling cockatoos or the mighty red gums. The demands of the city are crowding out the wild places, but they still resist. On the fringes or in the forgotten places, these last redoubts against the power of the 1% remain unconquered.

This is the last commons. The wild place, the uncivilised place, the free place.

A place where money has no hold. Where conventions, traditions and power structures have no value. The only appropriate place for a ruthless critique of everything existing. I hope you’ll join me.