The Story of the Commons and Enclosure

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The Commons provided Food Sovereignty for the peasants since time immemorial. Each family had a plot for a garden and shared lands to graze cows. They used the forests to gather wood and pick greens, herbs, and fruits.

 

Enclosure of the Commons: Then and Now

 

Enclosure (privitaziation) of the Commons  by the Lords, Parliament, and Kings in England took place during the 13-18th centuries.   There were many rebellions and revolts. After Enclosure, they were forced to work for the Lords, move to the cities and work in factories under horrific conditions, or emigrate to the Americas -- where the Common lands of the Native Americans were conficated.

 

Enclosure led to private property, rents, class warfare, white supremacy, banks, capitalism, patriarchy, progenitor, monogamous marriage, prostitution, witch hunts, colonization, genocide, empire, slavery, industrial revolution, wages, communism, socialism, prisons, courts, corporations, advertising, globalization, wars, famines, malnutrition, degenerative diseases, soil erosion, deforestation, pollution, waste.

 

Raj Patel points out that the main goal of Enclosure and capitalism was to feed workers in city factories during the Industrial Revoltuion. Enclosure is being continued and intensified now by mega corporations backed by governments and international organizations like the World Trade Organization and World Bank under globalization as more people are forced off the land into cities.

Since time immemorial, small farmers had plots of land for their gardens and shared the Commons to graze their cows. Everyone had access to the forests to gather wood for homes and fuel, to pick herbs, fruits, and vegetables, and to hunt and everyone could fish in the streams and rivers. After Enclosure, peasants had no way to survive other than by working on someone else's land, in factories, or emigrating. That is what is happening around the world today with  globalization. La Via Campesina is calling for a Return of the Cmmons to save life on Earth.






















 

Return of the Commons:  La Via Campesina / Food Sovereignty
 

Food Sovereignty is the core principle of La Via Campesina. "Campesina" means "peasant" or "small farmer". The organization chose this name to connect its movement to the right to the Commons as they fight against further Enclosure today. So, It is not only uniting many different peoples across the planet today, but is also connecting the world across time to our healthy roots!

The Food Sovereignty Chart of La Via Campesina shows how central food is to a wide variety of issues. La Via Campesina says that one of its main goals is to "Globalize Hope"!
 

The Urban Gardens/Farms Revolution is helping cities to feed themselves -- and thus facilitates Food Sovereignty and the Return of the Commons everywhere. Every urban gardener/farmer (even people just growing sprouts) is part of La Via Campesina and is helping to restore Food Sovereignty and the Commons -- even if they don't know it! Bob Cannard, a long-term beyond-organic farmer in California says that America had 20 million farmers, but now has only 200,000. Howerver, he predicts that in another 20 years, we will have about 20 million farmers again as more young Americans now return to farming.

 

As the books on the Books page in the Contact+ section of this site show, today the Commons involves a great deal more than food including clean air, clean water, the oceans, the Internet, etc. The Commons today refers to the oceans, clean water, access to water, the right to save seeds, biodiversity, healthy soils, bees, healthy food as a right, urban gardens/farms, community farms, green roofs, CSAs, farmers' markets, clean air, airwaves (broadcast channels) industrial (trillion-dollar crop) and medical hemp (panacea), alternative energy, free energy, rejection of control of nations by the transnational corporations, etc.

Communism (named to suggest a return to the Commons), Socialism, and Fascism are all top-down, government-imposed alternatives to Capitalism that failed. La Via Compesina is a grass-roots organization that is connecting people horizontally across continents and cultures and vertically locally/nationally/internationally as well as across time back to a Return of the Commons. It chose the name "Campesina" to evoke the return of the peasants and small farmeres who were driven off the land during Enclosure. La Via Campesina is giving the world its first real chance to correct the many mistakes of Enclosure and for the Return of the Commons.



















Urban Gardens and Farms

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The map reflects the Paradigm Shift as companies like Plantagon and Brooklyn Grange adopt a new business model. Hans Hassle, the Swedish CEO of Plantagon is the author of Business As Usual Is Over. Chief Oren Lyons, Faithkeeper of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) introduced the concept of "Values Change For Survival" to the UN and serves as the Chairman of the Board of Plantagon. However, he did not say what values to change!

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The book The Farm on the Roof explains that Brooklyn Grange, the world's largest commercial rooftop farm,  was established on the principles of the Triple Bottom Line: People, Planet, and Profit enunciated by John Elkington. Ron Finley, the self-style "Gangsta Gardener" is revolutinizing South Central Los Angeles with his urban gardens. His work is shown in the film Urban Fruit and he was a speaker at the Food Revolution Summit 2016. Ron's TEDx Talk has received over 2.5 millions views! The Urban Farming Guys are also revolutionizing tough neighborhoods in Kansas City, Missouri and plan to expand their model to other states. Will Allen is the premier urban farmer.

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Dr. Vandana Shiva was right when she said, "Urban Farms Are The Greatest Revolution Today! "