{"id":133089,"date":"2025-10-04T11:06:42","date_gmt":"2025-10-04T10:06:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/?p=133089"},"modified":"2025-10-04T11:25:46","modified_gmt":"2025-10-04T10:25:46","slug":"common-grievance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/common-grievance\/","title":{"rendered":"Common grievance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guy Standing<\/strong> shares with The Mint<\/em> his uncommon understanding of a fundamental political issue that pervades history to the present day.<\/p>\n

When Guy Standing speaks about the commons, he doesn\u2019t sound like a dry academic. He speaks with the urgency of someone who has watched a grand theft unfold in slow motion. \u201cThroughout history,\u201d he says, \u201cthe commons have been enclosed \u2014 taken away from ordinary people and turned into private property. Every great rebellion in British history has been about the defence of the commons.\u201d<\/p>\n

Standing, a British economist and honorary president of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN), has built his career on two intertwined ideas: the precariat \u2013 a new global class defined by insecurity and the erosion of rights\u00a0– and the reclamation of the commons. For him, these aren\u2019t abstract concepts. They are the pulse of politics today.<\/p>\n

A global voice<\/h5>\n

\u201cI joke that I\u2019ve sold more copies of my books on the commons in Korean than in English,\u201d he says with a chuckle. When he visited South Korea a few years ago, his ideas found a surprisingly receptive audience. In fact, one of his early interlocutors from BIEN is now the President of the Republic of Korea. \u201cHe came to our meetings, asked me about basic income, first as a governor, then as a presidential candidate,\u201d Standing recalls. \u201cTwo weeks ago, he was elected president. Fantastic story.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

If you accept private inheritance, then you must accept the inheritance of public wealth.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

For Standing, such stories prove that the politics of the commons is not just niche academic chatter. It is entering mainstream debates around the world \u2014 from South Korea to Malaysia, where he once sat down with the prime minister to discuss basic income as a form of \u201ccommon dividends.\u201d<\/p>\n

Basic income<\/h5>\n

Standing came to commoning through his decades of advocacy for a universal basic income. \u201cA basic income is common dividends,\u201d he insists. \u201cIf you accept private inheritance, then you must accept the inheritance of public wealth. Generations of commoners created public wealth. It\u2019s been plundered, privatised, and enclosed. A dividend is simply compensation, a matter of common justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rich pollute more, consume more, take more of the commons. People experiencing poverty suffer the consequences.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He points to the Alaska Permanent Fund, which pays citizens dividends from oil revenues, and Norway\u2019s sovereign wealth fund as models. He imagines similar schemes financed by eco-taxes on carbon emissions and land values. \u201cThe rich pollute more, consume more, take more of the commons. People experiencing poverty suffer the consequences. So why shouldn\u2019t we have a system of redistribution from those who take to those deprived of the commons?\u201d<\/p>\n

Blue commons<\/h5>\n

But land and air are only part of the story. Standing\u2019s recent work has focused on what he calls the Blue Commons \u2014 the sea. \u201cHistorically, the sea belonged to everyone,\u201d he explains. \u201cNow, through international treaties and privatisation, a minority of corporations are taking the profits, and it\u2019s going to get worse with deep-sea mining. That actually belongs to the commoners of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

His anger rises when he talks about water privatisation in Britain. \u201cThatcher\u2019s 1989 privatisation of water was a giveaway, plus subsidies. The water belongs to the commons, going back to Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forest. To hand it over to private equity to make huge profits is trampling on common justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

You can read his article in the current issue, which critiques Trump’s move to seize the marine commons<\/a>.<\/p>\n

History as resistance<\/h5>\n

For Standing, the story of the commons is the story of struggle itself. He rattles off examples like a living archive: Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forest in 1217, the Peasants\u2019 Revolt, the Levellers and Diggers of 1649, the Chartists of the 1830s, and William Morris in the 1890s. \u201cEvery great rebellion,\u201d he says, \u201cwas about recovering the commons.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Charter of the Forest, in his eyes, is \u201cthe most subversive document in British history.\u201d It enshrined rights to common land and due process, and remained on the statute books until 1971. \u201cWe\u2019re still fighting for the commons,\u201d Standing says, \u201cstill fighting for commoning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCommoning is a verb,\u201d he reminds us. \u201cIt\u2019s not just about resources. It\u2019s about shared activities, shared risks, shared benefits. It\u2019s about social solidarity.\u201d He points to allotments, cooperatives, Latin America\u2019s Via Campesina<\/em> movement, and African Ubuntu traditions as living examples. Even the National Health Service, he argues, was founded as a commons in 1948. \u201cIt belonged to everybody. Now it\u2019s being privatised by stealth. But it still belongs to us, and we shouldn\u2019t have it taken away.\u201d<\/p>\n

When I explain how the loss of the commons defines their predicament, people nod. They get it. Because they are living it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In Britain today, he sees people grasping this instinctively. He recalls a recent visit to Saltburn, where a caf\u00e9 cleared two floors for him to give a speech. \u201cCross-party audience, packed room. I talked about the commons and basic income. They all got it. They understood. Now they\u2019ve formed a network.\u201d<\/p>\n

The precariat and the plunder<\/h5>\n

The loss of the commons isn\u2019t just historical \u2014 it defines the present. Standing coined the term precariat to describe a mass class of people with insecure work, unstable incomes, and, crucially, shrinking rights. \u201cThe precariat is losing the commons,\u201d he explains. \u201cThey\u2019re losing public parks, libraries, allotments \u2014 those parts of social income that gave informal protection. That\u2019s what makes their insecurity unique.\u201d<\/p>\n

He has delivered more than 800 talks on the precariat in 49 countries, and everywhere, he says, people recognise themselves in his description. \u201cWhen I explain how the loss of the commons defines their predicament, people nod. They get it. Because they are living it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Politics of the Commons<\/h5>\n

For Standing, the commons offers more than analysis \u2014 it\u2019s a political horizon. \u201cOur politics is stuck,\u201d he says, frustrated by what he calls the dead ends of laborism and warmed-up \u201cthird way\u201d centrism. \u201cThey have no vision, no narrative of the future. The commons can provide that.\u201d<\/p>\n

He points to South Korea\u2019s national motto, Hongik Ingan <\/em>\u2014 \u201ccommunity through sharing.\u201d It is, he believes, precisely what\u2019s missing in today\u2019s rentier capitalism, where income flows upward to property owners while work is devalued. \u201cWe\u2019re a highly individualistic form of capitalism,\u201d he says. \u201cThe challenge is to restore the commons.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s about giving people back a sense of belonging, protection, and dignity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That\u2019s why he is meeting with Labour MPs, Green Party leaders, and activists across the world. For him, commoning is more than theory \u2014 it\u2019s a strategy for progressive politics, a way to rebuild solidarity in an age of division.<\/p>\n

\u201cCommoning is about resilience,\u201d Standing says, leaning forward. \u201cIt\u2019s about giving people back a sense of belonging, protection, and dignity. If we don\u2019t reclaim the commons, we risk losing not just resources but our very capacity to live together.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article, except for the quotes, was created with AI assistance.<\/p>\n

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