Sharing Revolution: the Essential Economics of the Commons

Contents Deep Sharing 3 Trusts: A Uniquely Commons Form of Ownership 44 The Next New Economy 6 Brewster Kahle Saves the Internet 47 Hey, Wanna Borrow My Blow Torch? 10 What is Commoning, Anyway? 50 The Story of Solutions 13 Renew the Commons, Recharge Your Life 52 Taxi Rides Go Communal 14 Create a Commons in Your Own Front Yard 53 Vancouver Values Sharing 17 An Introduction to Animating the Commons 55 You Don’t Have to Own Everything 19 Cities Learn to Share 57 How the Sharing Economy Can Improve Everyday Life in the Arab World 22 Peer Production Takes the Stage 60 The Power of Sharing Hits the Streets 24 The Trouble with Stuff 63 The Global Sharing Movement Ramps Up 26 In Defense of Hippies and Others Who Live Outside the System 67 How Urban Design Helps (or Hinders) Our Ability to Share 29 Making the Most of Commons All Around Us 69 We Are the Ones We’ve Been Waiting For 34 An Oregon Trail to End Student Debt 72 Why I Call Myself a Commoner 36 Biggest Secret in the World Economy 74 Economic Security Beyond Jobs 37 Who is the True Sell Out? 76 Creating Affordable Housing A Big Picture Vision for Social Change 78 for Nonprofit Workers 40 The Commons Are You In? 81 One Town’s Unexpected Economic Renaissance 42 Deep Sharing How the commons amplifies the sharing economy By Jessica Conrad On a bitingly cold and rainy November evening last market, and—at the risk of sounding overly dramat- year, I was in a pickle: I’d taken a city bus to CoCo, the ic—there would be no future coworking space where I office in downtown Minne- apolis, and was seemingly stuck without an efficient 0 option for getting to Birchwood Café, where I would Sharing has always been essential to human life, but meet friends for dinner, three miles away That is un- “What’s new,” says Neal Gorenflo, founder of Shareable til I remembered my new membership with car2go, Magazine, “is our blindness to it ” Through our indi- a car-share service that had recently won a contract vidualized pursuit of happiness—a lifestyle ushered with the city of Minneapolis I quickly located a vehi- in during the Industrial Revolution—many of us cle using car2go’s mobile app and, my despair vanish- have forgotten that for centuries the most promising ing, dashed out of the building in search of the blue source of security came from our ability to build and and white smart car parked only a few blocks away maintain strong social connections and respect the commons car2go’s operating program—“take it, drive it, park it”—allows users to drive vehicles and leave them on From water and forests to public transportation sys- the street anywhere within the designated home area tems and public health to human knowledge and the What I love about it, beyond the fact that it’s incredi- Internet, the commons includes all that we share But bly cost effective compared to owning a car, is that the it’s not just stuff, it’s also the ways we work togeth- community of drivers stewards the system Users are er—a whole new economic and political paradigm encouraged to keep the cars’ gas tanks full and tidy Elizabeth Royte, author of Bottlemania: How Water their tiny interiors before ending a trip What’s more, Went on Sale and Why We Bought It, aptly notes, “In a the drivers I know agree that it actually feels good to world of hyper-individualization…sharing our stuff leave a car in a new location because, in doing so, you with friends or strangers can be a political act ” increase access to the shared resource Putting the ideals of the commons into practice in That’s the appeal, along with saving money and the our everyday lives means engaging in community ac- planet, of the sharing economy—the emerging eco- tivities, for example, and sharing with our neighbors nomic revolution where access has become more im- “We act under the assumption that we will take care of portant than ownership each other and make decisions that increase our col- lective self-reliance,” says Julie Risatu, co-director of But what struck me during that first trip in No- On the Commons vember was this: Not only was I participating in the sharing economy, but my use of the car-share system The good news, says Jennifer Bradley, a fellow at was utterly dependent on city streets, a commons be- the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program, is that longing to all of us Not to mention the airwaves that we’re starting to witness more and more people tak- transmitted information to my smartphone, which ing life into their own hands People are starting to we technically share together ask, “What can we do together that we can’t do by our- selves?” This simple scenario reminded me that without the commons, there would be no sharing economy, no This cultural shift seems capable of both strength- ening community in a profound way and creating new opportunities for sharing on a scale we’ve argu- Sharing is not only good for the planet, but also ably never witnessed before Through the sharing serves as an “antidote to social isolation,” says Royte, economy, we can now use online social networks to adding: “That is, unless you orchestrate all your col- share and swap goods and services with peers (people laborative consumption [another term for the sharing we may or may not know) in a safe and efficient way economy coined by Rachel Botsman, author of What’s While some of these exchanges fuel the market econ- Mine is Yours] online, through the thousands of web- omy—for example, 3 to 5 percent of any contribution sites that facilitate this new economy ” Does sharing you make through Kickstarter, the popular crowd- make us happy when there’s no person-to-person in- funding platform, goes to Amazon—more familiar, teraction? Probably not tried-and-true models of sharing—such as libraries, cooperatives, and credit unions—offer an alternative Of course, as I’ve said before, the looming question to private ownership is how services within the sharing economy can become more effective in reaching across lines of class 0 and geography Some people are starting to address With the global population skyrocketing and our sup- the question of equity in thoughtful ways, and I espe- ply of natural resources decreasing, the cultural shift cially appreciate Jennifer Bradley’s recent Techonomy toward sharing seems timely But the question is will interview where she suggests how the sharing econ- it actually help us protect our commons and break the omy could address needs for a larger swath of society status quo of modern consumerism? With a few tweaks, an Uber-like system, for instance, could help low-income people get to work To Leland Maschmeyer, a creative director and author of The Triumph of the Commons, the sharing econ- Despite these possible shortcomings, this I know to omy succeeds as a first step toward a commons-based be true: When we own less, share more, and use re- economy because it helps people understand that sources only when we need them, we will be on a path “private ownership does not have a monopoly on hap- toward what Maschmeyer calls “redesigning society piness, health, and freedom ” Owning things doesn’t to promote the commons ” necessarily make us feel good, but sharing certainly does And the more people become comfortable with 0 the idea of sharing, says Maschmeyer, the more they The recent rise of both the sharing economy and the become comfortable with other kinds of sharing, the commons seems to suggest a growing recognition of true spirit of community, and the commons the fact that our health, happiness, and security de- pend greatly on the planet and people around us This Another boon of the sharing economy is its ability to book highlights the many ways, new and old, that help us “use our existing physical resources and sys- people connect and collaborate to advance the com- tems more effectively,” says David Mahfouda, founder mon good and explores how we can work together to of the taxi-share system Bandwagon In an effort to extend opportunities for sharing to even more people make sharing more appealing, Mahfouda offers pas- For when we operate as though we are all in this to- sengers an incentive to share their cab with others gether—because we are—we will discover a tremen- headed in a similar direction In doing so, Bandwag- dous abundance of goodwill, imagination, and the on takes advantage of underutilized capacity in the drive to create the kind of future we want to live in current cab system, a strategy that will likely amount to significant environmental advantages over time Jessica Conrad OnTheCommons.org Jessica Conrad has served as OnTheCommons org is the website the Content and Communi- of On the Commons, a commons ty Manager at On the Com- movement strategy center which: mons since 2011 Prior to 1) Builds visibility for the com- joining On the Commons, mons movement; 2) Initiates and cat- she worked at Sol Editions as alyzes commons work; and 3) Develops a researcher and writer for Lisa and encourages commons leadership To get the best Gansky’s The Mesh: Why The Future of Commons Magazine once a month, sign up here of Business is Sharing (Penguin 2010), a Wall Street Journal bestselling business book Jessica has also been a grant writer for The Promised Land, a Peabody Credits Award-winning public radio series featuring inno- All but one story is published under a Creative Com- vative thinkers who are transforming underserved mons (CC) license and can be reprinted with attribution communities She lives in Minneapolis and can be and a link to OntheCommons org or another original reached at jconrad@onthecommons org

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