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Page Count:448
Dimensions: 6 × 9 × 0.98 in
Publication Date:September 03, 2019
ISBN:9780865719217

Free, Fair, and Alive

The Insurgent Power of the Commons

Free, Fair, and Alive is a penetrating cultural critique, table-pounding political treatise, and practical playbook for “commoning” — free, self-organizing systems ranging from alternative currencies to open-source everything. It presents a bold and compelling alternative to the dead-end, predatory market-state system.

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The power of the commons as a free, fair system of provisioning and governance beyond capitalism, socialism, and other -isms.

From co-housing and agroecology to fisheries and open-source everything, people around the world are increasingly turning to ‘commoning’ to emancipate themselves from a predatory market-state system.

Free, Fair, and Alive presents a foundational re-thinking of the commons — the self-organized social system that humans have used for millennia to meet their needs. It offers a compelling vision of a future beyond the dead-end binary of capitalism versus socialism that has almost brought the world to its knees.

Written by two leading commons activists of our time, this guide is a penetrating cultural critique, table-pounding political treatise, and practical playbook. Highly readable and full of colorful stories, coverage includes:

  • Internal dynamics of commoning
  • How the commons worldview opens up new possibilities for change
  • Role of language in reorienting our perceptions and political strategies
  • Seeing the potential of commoning everywhere.

Free, Fair, and Alive provides a fresh, non-academic synthesis of contemporary commons written for a popular, activist-minded audience. It presents a compelling narrative: that we can be free and creative people, govern ourselves through fair and accountable institutions, and experience the aliveness of authentic human presence.

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Meet the Author

Author David Bollier

David Bollier is an American activist and scholar who studies the commons as a new paradigm for re-imagining economics, politics, and culture. He has been Director of the Reinventing the Commons Program at the Schumacher Center for a New Economics (USA) since 2016, and frequently collaborates with an international network of brilliant irregulars. He blogs at Bollier.org, hosts the podcast Frontiers of Commoning, and has written ten books on the commons, including The Commoner’s Catalog for ChangemakingPatterns of CommoningThe Wealth of the Commons, and, with Silke Helfrich, Free, Fair and Alive. Bollier lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.

author Silke Helfrich

Silke Helfrich was an independent activist, author, scholar, and speaker. She cofounded the Commons Strategies Group and Commons-Institute, was former head of the regional office of Heinrich Böll Foundation for Central America, Cuba, and Mexico, and holds degrees in Romance languages/pedagogy and in social sciences. Helfrich is the editor and co-author of several books on the Commons. She lived in Neudenau, Germany.

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New Society Publishers has been a leader in sustainable living books since 1980. Our books are printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper to support the health of the planet.

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