Review of Plunder of the Commons: A Manifesto for Sharing Public Wealth by Guy Standing
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BOOK REVIEW
Review of Plunder of the Commons: A Manifesto for Sharing Public Wealth by Guy Standing Pelican Books, 2019, 432 pp, ISBN 978-0-141-99062-0 Pascal Dey1,2
© Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Everybody nowadays should take an interest in notions of the ‘commons’ and ‘commoning’. Although hardly used in colloquial talk any more, these terms are of utmost significance in pointing toward the availability of resources for collective production and shared consumption, and of practices and spaces of being and producing in common that provide the freedom to redefine the realm of economic practice by our own rules. It is hence reassuring to observe a steady swell of academic interest in the commons and commoning as vehicles for challenging traditional understandings of property and labor (Gibson-Graham 2006), while offering a ‘politics of possibility’ that permits realigning the subject matter with the broader interests of community (Amin and Howell 2016). Guy Standing, a Professorial Research Associate at the London University who has written extensively about migration, development economics, and labor markets, is probably best known for his two books The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class (2011) and Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen (2017). While the two books are united by an interest in how work is becoming increasingly more unstable and insecure, and how increasing levels of poverty and inequality can be overcome, his newest book Plunder of the Commons: A Manifesto for Sharing Public Wealth (published 2019 by Pelican Books), blends seamlessly into his previous oeuvre by exploring the potential of the commons and commoning as an antidote against the erosion of society. Specifically, the book takes a close look at the Magna Carta, and especially at the lesser known Charter of the Forest, to recover a historical sensitivity for how citizens * Pascal Dey pascal.dey@grenoble‑em.com 1
Grenoble Ecole de Management, Grenoble, France
University of St, Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland
2
in Britain were granted the right to access and use common land, forests and water to lead a self-defined and dignified life. The Magna Carta, which celebrated its 800th birthday in 2015, and which is still considered by some as the most important legal document in the evolution of democracy, was sealed by King John at the request of the Church and barons to prevent the British nobility from expropriating the commons, thus forming the foundation of a liberal order devoid of tyranny. Celebrating the legacy of the two foundational charters, Standing goes on to present his idea of a Commons Charter offering a safeguard for people’s unrestricted access to the commons and representing an institution for governing the commons through a system of rules and norms. The commons are worth protecting, so Standing, precisely because they are generative for the creation of community: “Without a commons and commoning, there is no community” (p. 28). Based on detailed excavations and illustrations of the historical evolution and gradual
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