Could the commons have prevented Trump (and others like him)?

I know that this is possibly the most click-bait title one could think of, but hear me out, because that isn’t my intention — it’s something I’ve genuinely been thinking about these past few weeks watching the US election unfold (or crash, bang and then slowly and painfully crawl) — what does leadership look like in a commons-centred system?

Now don’t get me wrong, I know that there are already several million theories about the rise of Trump to power and there isn’t the space, nor is my knowledge of the intricacies of the commons advanced enough to go into the depth required here and now in this newsletter. More importantly, it’s essential to remember that Trump, and the rise in more explicit authoritarian leadership around the world these past years, cannot be disentangled from the powerful, three-headed systemic monster that is neoliberal capitalism, white supremacy and patriarchy; the existence of which lays claim to a great many of our collective global (and often personal) crises and the slaying of which is essential to the future of humanity. All that being said, I hope that you will humour me, and that perhaps my own musings will provide you with food for thought enough to come to your own conclusions.

Charter for Democracy illustrations by Clismón.

Shortly after this question popped into my head I began to research and remembered Guerilla Translation’s English translation of the 2014 ‘Carta por la Democracia’, or ‘Charter for Democracy’ as a Commons Transition Special Report (accessible here). The Spanish-originated ‘Movement for Democracy’ from which the Charter is born is an intentionally unfinished and thorough text on what politics should be. “It proposes a politics for the people: squarely grounded in environmental realities and social justice, based on the Commons, defended from corporate interests and neo-liberal dictates.”

The Charter is recommended reading (if you can forgive the beautiful but incredibly white illustrations and still trust the integrity of the document), but, unsurprisingly, in itself doesn’t fully answer the question of whether the commons could have prevented a Trump presidency. What the Charter does do is spark the imagination and shows what is possible for governance with the commons and complimentary systems at the centre. Shortly after it was published many of the 200 individuals involved in writing the Charter went on to develop its premises within a municipal, commons-oriented context and newly formed democratic, bottom-up citizen coalitions were successfully elected in various cities in Spain, including Barcelona and Madrid. Today, the municipalist platforms coordinate among themselves to share resources and best practices, functioning as trans-local affinity networks. You can read more about them here and how they came to be in this excellent article by Stacco Troncoso and Ann Marie Utratel “Commons in the time of monsters: How P2P Politics can change the world, one city at a time” from 2017.

The good news is that the municipalist coalitions in Spain are not alone; progressive cities exist worldwide, as well as well-practiced communities where fair and life-giving ways of organising have been passed down through generations, or developed as means of survival and resistance to the mainstream that marginalises them. These communities, towns, and cities are enabling the act of commoning; listening to each other’s voices and creating spaces for ordinary people to roll up their sleeves and manage those matters that concern them most directly — Ghent in Belgium, the Zapatistas in Mexico, Belo Horizonte in Brazil, Bologna and Naples in Italy, Amsterdam in Holland, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (Rojava), Frome and Bristol in the UK, Cooperation Jackson in the USA, Valparaiso in Chile are a few examples (NB: I am always grateful for signposting to other examples, particularly from other continents not mentioned). Each community or locality shows what is beautiful about humanity — that there are so many possibilities, so many ways for us to organise ourselves and our resources and to care for one another, and there is so much potential in a world of plurality where those often localised, collectively designed and self-organised systems can co-exist together, equitably, in harmony.

Author David Bollier recognises the need for new forms and practices of commons at all levels — local, regional, national and global, that could lead to us governing ourselves in ways we could not have previously conceived of. Bollier also states a need for new types of federation among commoners and linkages between different tiers of commons, as well as trans-national commons to help align governance with ecological realities and serve as a force for reconciliation across political boundaries. Bollier argues that innovations in law, public policy, commons-based governance, social practice and culture would manifest a very different worldview than that which prevails in the established governance systems, particularly those of State and Market.

So I listen for those innovations and those systems, those stories of communities organising themselves in magical ways; I look to rural and farming communities; to countries and communities outside of the West where commoning is inherent in many cultures, I look to marginalised communities who have had to find alternative ways of existing, where the commons is resistance and survival; I look to the past (without rose-tinted glasses) to ways we once knew that are all but forgotten, and to the future for what is possible; to afrofuturism, to sci-fi, to unknown, modern philosophers. There are many ways of being together, but if we value freedom, equity and the regeneration and sustainability of the planet, a planet where we know better ways of working with narcissists than electing them; commoning should perhaps be at the heart of them.