Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
David Bollier is an activist, scholar, and blogger who is focused on the commons as a new/old paradigm for re-imagining economics, politics, and culture. He pursues his commons scholarship and activism as Director of the Reinventing the Commons Program at the Schumacher Center for a New Economics and as cofounder of the Commons Strategies Group, an international advocacy project. Author of Think Like a Commoner and other books, he blogs at www.bollier.org, and lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.
The Open Source Seed Initiative, founded in 2012, has been a key vehicle and voice in reclaiming the right to share seeds and strengthening all the benefits that flow from seed-sharing: healthier soils, empowered farmers and communities, biodiversity, more robust seed innovation.
June 9, 2025
A commons is a bounded community of shared purpose that stewards its collective wealth with self-devised rules of care, fairness, and mutual benefit. The history of humanity over millennia shows that this is a default social form.
May 30, 2025
In its many projects, Shareable has shown just how diverse, creative, and consequential organized sharing can be. The power of bottom-up collaboration focused on specific needs is powerful. When modest infrastructures are created to empower people to contribute their talents, some amazing things happen.
May 28, 2025
What are some of the distinctive ways that precarious arts collectives share resources, support each other, and make art?
April 10, 2025
We should take inspiration from many brave, resourceful commons projects that are reclaiming the local from the neocolonial priorities of capital and nation-states. A big part of their work is recovering local ownership and use of land so that it can steward, and not exploit natural systems.
March 11, 2025
Now that liberal democracy is under siege and a restoration of previous systems is likely impossible, I hope the book may also help expand people’s imaginations of what is possible.
March 4, 2025
