Politics of the Commons

Follow the lecture on the You Tube channel of Lokomotiva, Skopje: https://youtu.be/9tDK4E6fdBg 

Faced with increasing inequalities and the inability of the neoliberal state to offer institutional mechanisms for the fulfilment of all people’s social and economic rights, which the market simultaneously fails to provide, the pressure to find alternative modes of production, social relations and forms of organization is overwhelming. The challenges that the TINA (“There Is No Alternative”) paradigm faces and the opening up of possibilities to imagine non-capitalist societies, as well as to avoid the capitalist appropriation of attempts to bring about change, are always present. At the same time, it is encouraging to see narratives and practices of resistance emerging, transforming and sustaining, and therein promising such possible change. Over the last decades, the concept of the commons has emerged as one of the potent political paradigms that has inspired different social actions and political mobilizations across the globe.