Sublime

But the Wasichus have put us in these square boxes. Our power is gone and we are dying, for the power is not in us any more. You can look at our boys and see how it is with us. When we were living by the power of the circle in the way we should, boys were men at twelve or thirteen years of ago. But now it takes them very much longer to mature. Well

Economists describe the Tragedy of the Commons like this: cattle herders sharing a pasture will inevitably place the needs of their cows above the needs of others’, adding cow after cow and taking more than their share of the common grass. The “free rider” takes advantage of the commons, and consumes it until it’s gone. This, the argument goes, is

but I think that I speak within bounds when I say that, though the birds of the air have their nests, and the foxes their holes, and the savages their wigwams, in modern civilized society not more than one half the families own a shelter.

“Commoning” is the term for the creation of homes that are collectively owned and controlled by the residents. There is a long tradition of this in urban America. Starting in the late 1960s, poor New Yorkers began rehabilitating apartment buildings abandoned by landlords, many damaged by fire and years of neglect. You could earn a spot through “swe

These two economic worldviews, of prosperity gained through individual accumulation and prosperity gained through sharing of the commons, underpin the history of colonization