The Commons, Neoliberalism and Feminism


Late Modernity: A Genealogy of neoliberalism
Erasmus University College
Myrthe van der Staay (526414)
21-03-2021






Introduction
This essay aims to have a critical look at the widely used concept of the “the commons”. The commons, depending on where you look from encapsulates different meanings. From an ecological viewpoint the commons are common-pool resources such as rivers and air (Feeny et al, 1990, p.1). From a social viewpoint reclaiming the commons is a commonly heard revolutionary cry for decommodification and anti-privatization. Simultaneously, the commons is present in the vocabulary of the very organizations the revolutionaries try to fight. The World Bank, for instance, is committed to protect the “global commons” and the “common heritage of humanity” (Federici, 2019 p. 94). Regardless of where you look from, the discussion of the commons is deeply intertwined with globalization and neoliberalism. This essay will first shortly touch upon the relationship between the commons and capitalism and its configuration in neoliberalism in particular. After, the conception of the commons will be expanded and situated in the contemporary globalized world. Finally, this essay will touch upon the commons and feminism in order to show the revolutionary potential in contemporary commons.

Capitalism and the Commons
Marx was the first to notice the relationship between the commons and capitalism. He noted that capitalism requires on-going enclosures and appropriation of the commons to ensure on-going accumulation. In his Capital (1887) Marx describes the horrendous events of land appropriation under the guise of agricultural improvement and modernisation. In fact, it is through this process of primitive accumulation, that the classes of those who own capital and those who do not could start forming. The dispossessed, deprived of their resources, are left to turn to their labour into a commodity to be sold on the market in order to survive (Fournier, 2013,p.436). This mechanism of capitalism is not unique to the 19th century, but rather a fundamental feature of capitalism that may take many forms.
In fact, Nancy Fraser sheds lights on the differences of exploitation and expropriation and how they are both of vital importance for the continuation of capitalism. Expropriation is the act of confiscating resources and capacities 'conscripting them into capital’s circuit of self-expansion’ (Fraser, 2016, p.166). This process has been necessary in capitalism's history to deprive communities of their means of subsistence in order for them to have to comply with capitalist relations of production. Once expropriated, communities are left to sell their labour power on the market in order to acquire their necessary means of subsistence. From there, exploitation can take place. The latter rests on Marx’s surplus-value of labour theory which asserts that labour is the only commodity that creates value, and thus in order to make profit, needs to be exploited (Fraser, 2016, p.164). Capitalism cannot exist without constantly building off both.
As Fraser, Harvey (2005) and Federici (2019) amongst others, point out that neoliberalism as a specific form of capitalism is not an exception to this rule. Very clearly, the goal of neoliberalism is to install a global market together with the market relations that arise from it, and have nothing exist outside of them. In A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Harvey (2005) notes that the modern equivalent of primitive accumulation, which is accumulation by dispossession has led to a commodification of nearly everything. In the Global North accumulation by dispossession can be seen articulated in the commodification of commodities previously considered too important to be left to the market, such as hospitals and other public services and goods (Harvey, p.160). In the Global South, the promise that participation in the market would lead to a ‘trickle-down’ effect of wealth has led to extreme debt together with near vanishing of common land through enclosures (Harvey, p.64). In fact, the process of land and resource privatisation in the Global South has resulted in a mass proletarianization of populations that still relied on subsistence agriculture, and in the production of new cheap work force.
Federici notes that ‘it is almost a law of contemporary society that the more commons are attacked, the more they are celebrated.’ (Federici, 2019, p. 86). This celebration can ironically be seen in the commitment of The World Bank and the United Nations to protect the ‘global commons’ and the ‘common heritage of humanity’. In practice this means a policy of new privatizations resulting in the expulsion of people who have lived for generations in diverse local environments such as forest areas, for the purpose to ‘conserve’ these areas through market dynamics such as ecotourism (Federici, pp.90, 94).
The African continent, which represented the smallest property regime where property was almost undefined in bureaucratic ways, suffered from massive attempts of enclosure of commons on the behalf of Western organisations and companies. Part of the Western justification of such massive enclosure project comes from the law of the tragedy of the commons. In 1968, American ecologist Garret Hardin published an article in which he denounces the ‘tragedy of the commons’; or the inevitable overexploitation of all resources used in common, such as shared land and rivers (Feeny et al.,1990, p.1). According to Hardin, there is a divergence in individual and collective rationality in regard to common-pool resources: a marginal individual gain eventually simultaneously means a collective loss. The regard for the collective is blinded by individual short-term self-interest leading to overexploitation and degradation of the commons. To halt this mechanism, Hardin argued exclusively for either a privatization of the commons or for commons to be held in public hands (Feeny et al.,p.2). His conclusion, although initially focused on environmental carrying capacity, (which is ironic given contemporary knowledge on the disastrous environmental consequences on behalf of private enterprises), had far reaching consequences in fields way beyond ecology. The tragedy of the commons attained the status of a scientific fact in economics and political science without being based on barely any empirical research but merely on a thought experiment embedded in western conceptions of human nature (Nichols, 2019, p.153). The real tragedy of the commons therefore is the consequences of its myth through neoliberalism.
The myth was consequently debunked by Eliner Ostrom in her 1990 study Governing of the Commons, in which Ostrom assesses, based on theoretical and empirical considerations, that neither state nor market management of natural resource systems is superior to self-regulation of common-pool resources in the long term. According to Ostrom, local users have a higher stake to use the commonly held resources in a sustainable manner than corporations or the state due to the fact that they have multigenerational knowledge that is sustained through communal self-organisation.
Although Ostrom is regarded by some as the great protector of the commons, a closer look reveals that her conception of the commons promotes commons for the sake of the market (Fournier, 2013, p.435). Indeed, Ostrom’s work proves that self-organisation through the commons is a viable alternative to the market and state organisation. Her focus is on the collective organisation within the commons, which consequently allows for its products to be exclusively appropriated by individual users (Fournier, p.440). This outlook on the commons is one that focuses on organising in common, but not for the commons. It also rests on a very narrow definition of the commons, namely one just concerned with resources and the ‘efficient’ management of those. However, such appreciation of the commons is not the only one. To understand the revolutionary slogan “reclaim the commons” we need to move to a more holistic conception of the commons.

The duality of the global commons
The slogan “reclaiming the commons” seems to imply that the only antidote against neoliberal commodification is that of a reversal of its actions through a return to an archaic romanticized idea of communal land. However, this would be a misinterpretation of the slogan as the commons actually stand for new developments. As Hardt & Negri state in Multitude, “the common is not so much discovered as it is produced”. Therefore in moving beyond the commons as shared natural resources, which Hardin and Ostrom imply, it is more fitting to speak of ‘commoning’.
Globalization as imposed by neoliberalism has two opposing consequences, on the one hand increased global control, on the other hand, new circuits of communication and cooperation are made possible. Discovering commonality in our differences allows us to communicate and act together. Hence, the multitude may be perceived as a network in which all differences can be expressed freely, and in which lies a basis from which we can work and live in the common (pp. xiii -xiv). The multitude in contrast to the single entity of ‘the people’, is many. (p. xiv) Many, however does not mean the same, as the masses. The masses are in essence indifferent. All the differences that constitute the masses in the first place blur to a grey mass which allows them to move as a union.
Alternatively, in the multitude such differences remain visible, thus constituting a real diverse entity working together on the basis of communication and respect. This is also what Federici alludes to when she argues against the concept of global commons. We cannot speak of commons without a community (Federici, pp. 93-4). The commons, are not things but are social relations revealed in practices that in the eyes of the capitalist are often regarded as inefficient (p.94). These social relations are not concerned with efficiency but with togetherness and collective self-determination. Commoning is reclaiming the power to make local decisions independent of the state and the market, articulated in a non-hierarchical community that is based on characteristics of which capitalism is void, namely social cooperation and shared responsibility (Federici, pp. 95 -96). Examples of such are the increased creation of collectively organised urban gardens that aim to take back control over food production, independent from the state and market (Federici, p.105). In an increasingly precarious world given the advancement of the climate crises and its consequences of environmental degradation and economic crises, there are signs that indicate that the urban commons will increasingly be the coping mechanisms.
A good example is what happened to Detroit after neoliberalism replaced Keynesian-Fordism and after the American city which once had a flourishing car industry saw all the jobs being outsourced to the Global South. The population more than halved between the 1960s and now, leaving mainly the poorest part of the population to stay (Demain, 2015). In between, the remnants of the city grew the seed off the commons. Due to difficulties in finding fresh food, the citizens decided to sustainably grow fresh food themselves. Currently Detroit has 1600 urban farms and has set its goal to feed half of its population with home-grown food (Demain, 2015). The example of the regeneration of Detroit through the commons is hopeful but should also be considered with care. With the advancement of the climate crisis it is plausible that capitalism will become increasingly dependent on the commons and will need a ‘common fix to manage its increasing social and environmental costs’ (Fournier, 2013, p.437). In an attempt to escape the responsibilities of environmental degradation and market and state failures, European states are increasingly drawing on the commons to take the burden. In 2010 in the UK for example, David Cameron proposed the idea of the ‘big society’. Twenty years on from Margaret Thatcher’s famous ‘there is no such thing as society’, Cameron’s big society proposes to fuse the free market with social solidarity and voluntarism, essentially placing the commons at the mercy of capitalism. (Scott, 2010, p.132,133).

The commons and feminism
Here, it is important to mention that together with the enclosures of land that Marx observed in 19th century England, woman became enclosed too. The consequent division of society into the various social classes also divided work society in between what is considered valuable and is paid and what is not (Federici, 2012, p.28). In practice, this has meant that social reproduction, or care work, has been left unpaid and mainly taken care of by women. Whereas before it was a common practice to share the burden (and blessing) of care work amongst a community, capitalism isolated care work in the institution of the family (Federici, 2019, p.111). The importance of this work for the sustaining of capitalism can not be understated as care work, which consists of emotional, physical and sexual services, allow for the labour power to be sustained and provide the little humanity in a society in which we are expected to work as machines (Federici, 2012, p.44). Unpaid care work is yet another pillar on which capitalism sustains itself without bearing any cost, as it enables the reproduction of labour power.
Some have argued that the emancipation of women into the workforce has turned the tide but as Nancy Fraser (2009) notes this accomplishment of feminism is not as groundbreaking as it seems. The inclusion of women into the workforce has not levitated the gendered burden of care work but has in fact increased the pressure. Women are now expected to make a career whilst simultaneously performing care work that remains unpaid (Fraser, p.110). This of course hinders women's emancipation through the economic sphere compared to men who can rely on women for the care work to be accomplished. In addition, contemporary advanced economies have moved away from actual material production and rely increasingly on immaterial labour and general intellect (Fournier, 2013, pp.437, 438). This can be seen articulated in the increased Western focus on human capital and the deformation of capitalism as a mode of production to a capitalism for the product (Deleuze, 1992, p.6). The increased reliance on general intellect refers to all knowledge acquired outside of the workplace, in the commons, through social interactions in society at large (Fournier, p.438). Due to this, the revival of the commons due to environmental degradation, economic crises and globalization, also means a commons susceptible for appropriation.
To install a truly anti-capitalist force through commoning, we need to understand ourselves as common subjects. There can be no commons until we refuse to base our own life and reproduction on the basis of the suffering of others (Federici, 2019, p.110). The commons has not yet been able to be a tour de force against capitalism, because it was lacking the intersectional lense through which we can mend our struggles in capitalism into a strong community. If it is the household on which the economy is built then it is also the prisoners of this household who will reclaim collective life (Federici, p.112). In fact, this process is already into play, many of the commons created and managed today have women at the forefront of the fight.

Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be said that capitalism initially has been built upon the expropriation of the commons and has consequently never stopped doing so. In neoliberalism this has been articulated in a process of new enclosures justified through a false analysis of the tragedy of the commons and the promise of economic development. In the face of this failure, the very same institutions behind these acts have self-declared themselves as the watchdog for the “global commons”. The narrow definition used by neoliberal actors, has inhibited the possibility to regard the commons as something beyond common-pool resources. Once conceptualizing the commons not as just a resource but also as an act, the commons prove to have been a steady counter capitalist force through history as they symbolize a possibility outside of capitalism. The acts involved in commoning are one the one hand regarded as inefficient in capitalism, but have nonetheless been proven to be at once one of the pillars on which capitalism is built and also form as a ‘common fix’ for market and state failures.
The process of globalization could for one be regarded as an increasing pressure on the commons, but has also facilitated the possibility of a global commons - not as articulated by the World Bank - but in the form of a true anti-capitalist movement based on communality in multitude. At the forefront of this contemporary fight we find the women that recognize that in times of increased global precairy due to environmental degradation and the cracking of our economic system, the only answer is a collective answer. Reclaim the commons, not to fall back, but in order to move forward.




References
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