What is shared

La Vie des idées: Why a dictionary of common goods?

Marie Cornu: Under this term “commons”, we will find a plurality of meanings, we will also find a plurality of designations. We speak of “the” common, “of” the commons, of the “common good”, of the “common goods”, and each time we refer to a different meaning, to a different approach. In this Dictionary of Common Goodswe originally preferred the title “Critical Dictionary of the Commons”. This name refers to a certain way of approaching the commons.

To understand this plurality of meanings, and to understand the direction of work of this dictionary, I believe that we should perhaps say a word about its genesis, at what point the idea of ​​this dictionary appeared. A few years ago, in a research program within the framework of the National Research Agency (ANR) led by Benjamin Coriat, who is an economist and who has worked a lot on this question of the commons, we discussed the question of knowledge commons, informational commons. This program was called CONDUCIVE (Property, Commons and Exclusivity). He was indeed interested in the question of these commons of knowledge, which are resources with shared access whose mode of government is organized. One of the very important theoretical frames of reference in this program was of course the founding work of Elinor Ostrom, who, from an extremely rich empirical material, developed a notion of commons, characterized what the commons are from a certain number of constitutive features, to derive a certain number of operating principles. So in this definition of the commons according to the Ostromian model, a common constitutes both a resource, but a resource with shared access. The notion of use, and of use collectiveis fundamental. It is still not enough, it is still necessary for this resource to be organized, structured according to a mode of governance, a mode of government. That is the Ostromian model. It draws from it a certain number of operating principles, in particular a principle of self-government, a principle of user control over the way in which decisions are made.

This program CONDUCIVE has placed itself in the wake of these works to broaden the perspective, of course. Therefore, in the Dictionarythis is one of the notions that has been very important to us. That being said, we have opted for a slightly broader perspective, we have been interested in all the places, resources, spaces in which we can register the common or commons, that is to say in which collective needs are manifested, a collective interest, in which a form of collective responsibility is expressed where appropriate.

La Vie des idées: Is multidisciplinarity essential to grasp the commons?

Marie Cornu: The work that has reactivated, that has brought back to the forefront this reflection on the commons comes largely from economics. Elinor Ostrom received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2009, precisely for her work on the commons. That being said, the reflection on these resources with shared access, obeying a governance structure, implies notions coming from other disciplines, in particular legal or sociological notions. When we think about governance, we will also think about the distribution of rights, the controls exercised on decision-making, all things that imply legal reflection. It seems to me that Elinor Ostrom herself took this object as an object that, par excellence, calls for multidisciplinary reflection. We have also associated historians with the project, since in history, a certain number of experiments, institutions, thinkers have invested this question of the commons.

For us, it was absolutely fundamental to have this plural lighting around the commons. In the Dictionaryin this case, other disciplines are also called upon, such as sociology or anthropology. The notion of “community” is a legal anthropologist who produced the note. Political scientists, philosophers such as Pierre Dardot and Christian Laval have defined their notion of common, what they mean by “the” common – they choose to define it in the singular.

There was obviously an interest in this multidisciplinarity, to the extent that each discipline develops its own vocabulary, its own concepts, and mobilizes its methodological tools. For us, it was quite rich and interesting to be able to access this material. We must see this dictionary as a real tool, which allows us to think better perhaps, with different approaches, about the question of the commons.

La Vie des idées: Why was it important to give the actors a voice?

Marie Cornu: For us it was very important, to the extent that the commons are a kind of social construct, a form of social organization designed on a certain mode of sharing, distribution of a certain number of rights, accesses, uses, exploitations, etc.

It was obviously an interesting question to explore in terms of theory, but it is not a totally abstract notion, it is based on experiences, including the work of Elinor Ostrom, which is based on a certain number of empirical observations and very diverse field surveys. She was interested in natural resources at first, and she also worked on informational commons. We now see that this notion of the commons is a social reality. It is also a fabric of experiences in various places and spaces: in cities (urban commons), on the internet (digital commons)… in terms of resource exploitation, we are also seeing the emergence of new forms of social organization, with extraordinary inventiveness. It was absolutely essential to restore part of it, both to show this abundance of social experiences, and to help reflect on the commons – since here we are really in the realm of acting together, and in the concrete construction of a certain number of social experiences.

It must also be said that this phenomenon of the commons, which is multiplying in almost all areas of life, is also driven by the idea that the model of private and exclusive property is no longer adapted to a certain number of configurations. There is a basis, a background in this development of the commons, ideological no doubt, of resistance or response, of response to a context that no longer meets the expectations of a certain number of groups. In one of his publications, The return of the commonsthe project CONDUCIVE had chosen as its subtitle “The ideological crisis of property”. This is really a background that must be kept in mind to understand this mechanism of the commons that is deployed in all these living spaces.

La Vie des idées: Is there a French school of the commons?

Marie Cornu: I mentioned earlier the diversity of meanings and approaches to the commons: Elinor Ostrom and her Bloomington school of course, but also the absolutely fascinating thinking of Italian jurists around the blessed community. A commission, the Rodotà commission, met and proposed to create a new legal category, between public goods and private goods. This category of “common goods” would include goods considered to be outside the market, because they are indispensable to the development of the human person. It is a very interesting construction, very different from that of Ostrom, who bases this category of goods on fundamental rights. I do not know if we can speak of a “school”, but in any case there are Ostromian and Italian models.

I am not sure that we can speak today of a “French school” of the commons, in any case it was not the project of the Dictionary to show the advent of a particular school. There is an obvious interest, in many disciplines, for this theme of the commons. A large number of seminars have been organized by philosophers, sociologists and lawyers. There is really a reflection to be conducted, a project to be carried out on this terrain of the commons. From there, I am not sure that a school will emerge. I would rather speak of different approaches. For example, Dardot and Laval will insist on acting together, on the institution of the common, where others will have a different view. Benjamin Coriat is part of a conception of the common very inspired by Ostrom, but which goes beyond that. Perhaps in twenty years we will speak of a “French school of the commons”, but from my point of view, but for the moment it is not current.