Commons, constitutions and critique

Abstract

The idea of "the commons" is strongly entangled with the language of rights and constitutions. The relation between fundamental rights and the idea of the commons concerns not least access to and usage of common goods deemed fundamental for human existence, and the actual possibility of enjoying rights. My argument here is that a strategy of the commons is both about criticizing existing legal and constitutional structures, and about using legal-constitutional means in a subversive way to redress structural differences in power in the capitalist system, which, so it is claimed, are grounded in legal categories of private property and liberal constitutionalism.

Keywords

• Commons. Practices, boundaries and thresholds
• lo Squaderno No. 30