The Two Faces of the Commons
Etienne Le Roy
LAJP Paris 1 & CT F&D MAEDI-AFD

To Introduce a 7 minutes Talk
• A summary of mental and legal blocks to identify »
Commons » as a day to day question of research
in :
• ELR, « How I Have Been Conducting Research on the Commons for Thirty
Years Without Knowing It”, in David Bollier & Silke Helfrich (eds.), Patterns
of Commoning (Amherst, MA, The Commons Strategies Group and Off the
Common Books, 2015, pp.277-296).
• The story of researchs, from 1965 to 1995, in Senegal, others
countries of Western and Central Africa and France .

To Introduce ... Twenty Years of Questions
( 1995-2015)
- 1995 First meeting with Elinor Ostrom in Paris questionning field works in Comoros and
Malagasy Republic: The theory of Land Masteries (1996)
- 2011 A global synthesis according to my own paradigm of the Commons : ELR La Terre
de l’Autre (Paris, LGDJ) = The Land of/and the Other.
The theory of Land Masteries revisited with a proposal where « patrimony » encloses
« property ».(a post-modern enclosure to restrict the monopoly of the ownership !)
- 2015 Girona (Catalonia) A coming out like a commoner
« Black Africa and the Commons, Land, Law and Land-Tenures » PP to be published in
french 2016. The main conclusion : Two Faces for one question, the meeting of Commons
and commoditisation

To introduce … (end) 2 points about
Commons and Commoditisation
• Commons preceding Capitalism or without
historical relations to Market : it is no matter
to Property rights and Ownership. How to
explain the specificities of commons rights ?
• Commons after the meeting with Market and
commoditisation : an uncertain conjunction
of two logics and two systems of norms at
the risk of cannibalisation of the commons.

Commons preceding Capitalism or without
relations to the Market
At the age of pre-capitalism

Any general features of the Commons
Commons are the opening and general pattern of Humanity to secure the appropriation of
territories and rights about resources. Always a third of Humanity are primo-commoners.
Commons were known more or less by all the civilizations but never along the same
solutions.
Commons are founded on the paradigm of sharing (that is « cutting » and gathering)
and not exchange. Societies differ on what is precisely shared (always many « goods »)
and pluralistics rules of sharing to maintain inclusive relations. Exchange becomes
prevaling with Capitalism and exclusivism.
Commons are not only wealth. There are a complex whole of communities, specific
resources and rules for governance, (Bollier) where the main constraint is « commoning »
(infra) and not producing.
Three main entries : by socio-anthropology of communities, by economics and by
law/juridicity, but in accordance with a interdisciplinary point of view.
All things or wealth being sharing on a long or short terme basis and more or less publicly,
there are no nomenclature, typology or models judicious for all and always. Here, is
prevailing a thinking binding any members of a corporate group, things or « goods »
(always specified) and discreet or secret regulations said as » agreement » or « customs ».
An other specificity is that Commons are determined by a functional ( pragmatic) logic and
not by an institutionnal one. Consequently, a big problem with ‘Law’(infra).
There are always material and immaterials commons and immaterials commons are too
fluent into aboriginal societies as for post modern relationships.

Any features of « commoning »
according to Bollier and Helfrichp. 3
• « The drama of commoning is an active, living process (…) Trying to
define the commons using definition and methodologies from the natural
science is futile. Commoning involves so much idiosyncratic creativy,
improvisationsituational choices, and dynamic evelution that it can only
understood as aliveness. It defies simple formula or analysis. (…) Theory
and practice must be in intimate conversation (…) If the primary focus of
commons is not on resources, goods or things, but on interpersonal and
human/nature relationships, then institutions of any kind (…) must
reliably promote three things : respect for ecological boundaries, stable
community and volontary cooperation.
• (…) importance of empathy, social relationship and culture (…)
Commmons, at their core, are <relational social frameworks> »

Specificities of commons rights
« Law » and « Property » as problems
Law : - The Common law with its property rights, trust, bundle of rights and
stewardship is more mobilizable than the Civil Law.
- Civil Law, during and after the French Revolution, has excluded
communities/corporations et autres (Loi Le Chapelier,14 06 1791), commons/
communs becoming communaux, in may and june 1793, and communal spirit/
esprit communautariste du « commoning » in the Civil Code de 1804 (« le
particulier » art. 537). The one basis : art. 1134 CC « Les conventions légalement
formées tiennent lieu de loi à ceux qui les ont faites. Elles ne peuvent être révoquée que de leur
consentement mutuel, ou pour des causes que la loi autorise. Elles doivent être exécutées de
bonne foi ».
But legality, here, concerns reals estates or properties.
Commons are overshadowed

PROPERTIES RIGHTS ?
• With sharing, the legal relations of the commoners are inclusive and opposite to
the property rights linked to alienation (alienus = stranger) and exclusivity of relations by
exchange. Here the rights of access, withdrawal and Management (Ostrom) are
relevant only is their purpose is inclusiveness.
• The good question isn’t « Who is the owner » but « With whom, about what
resources, how long and according to what rules ?
• Juridicity as criterion of liability and sanctionnability combine three components : a
statute into a group, the right mode of use the resource and a term « iconic » to
identify the casual norm to respect

Légende : & = A/1, § = B/2, * = C/2 , + = A/3 etc. Si A est un mode de contrôle par
découverte, B mode de contrôle par conquête, C mode de contrôle par attribution, si 1 est
un mode d’utilisation pour l’agriculture, 2 utilisation pour la résidence, 3 utilisation pour les
activités de chasse, pêche ou élevage, on peut donc définir & comme un droit portant sur la
terre agricole au titre de la découverte , § comme un droit portant sur une terre
résidentielle au titre de la conquête et * également comme un droit résidentiel mais au
titre de l’attribution etc Le terme iconique peut désigner une technique agricole, un outil,
un lieu ou un lieu-dit, voire un geste symbolique.
Legal Icons
A B C
1 &
2 § *
3 +

The right to exclude as discriminant
• In a communautarian ideology, nobody may be excluded, excepted for his own
injuries. When somebody is excluded from a common ( too small, too precarious, and
so on) he may share an other common, material or immaterial, in another place or
moment. Always an another or more large possible attachment to a collective of
commoners. To exclude is here positive ; to gather at another scale.
• In an individualist ideology, to exclure is to break a relation, changing a commoner as
a stranger, without mutual obligations and opening to the isolation of the owner. To
exclure is negative founding the absolute right of ownership.

Commons after meeting the
Market and commoditisation
At the age of transmodernity

What meeting ?
• Return to a past ?
• Rediscovery ?
• Rebirth ?
• A mix of anscient and new solutions
= More and less spontaneous adaptations to new deals
and needs where use by rent* is prefered to proprerty,
urban way of life and immaterial resources (knowledge
and networks**) play a central part by easy
opportunities.

The entry into Transmodernity
• The triple crisis of Modernity
- State : the end of monopolies on legitimate violence and on
currencies; from confidence to mistrust for citizens
- Market see 2008 (subprimes) and after
- Individualism becoming egotism and consumerism
° The respons by the networks linking global and local
(glocalism), pre and postmodernities with two main deals (complexity
and plurality, specially legal pluralism) and a new confidence into
communities and commoners (proximity).

Is change an alternative or an adaptation ?
• Commons as an alternative to State and Market
may be considered as a support for a political
revolution at the global scale (Dardot and Laval,
2014)
° But the main stream of proposals about the
futur of the commons ( i.e; Bollier and Helfrich)
views a complementarity of modes of
productions and styles of life : always more
complex and pluralist.

How to found this complementarity
and to avoid a cannibalisation of the Commons ?
• Observed empirically, never ordered by an external
autority but managed by commoners on basis of a
functionnal logic. The « need », nor « the reason », is
the criterium of pragmatic adjusments.
• Functionnal logic of the commons is superimposable
with institutional logic of property rights and ownership
when use is compatible with exclusivity of proprerty
rights
• An exemple with the theory of Masteries on Land and Fruits

Masteries on Land and Fruits
as legal model of complementarity
and a chessboard
STATUTE OF
THE SUPPORT
&
associated right
MASTERIES
Legal relation
Chose
/ thing
Accès/
Access
MINIMAL
AVOIR
/ good
Prélèvement/withdra
wal
PRIORITY
POSSESSION/asse
ts
Gestion/managemen
t
SPECIALISED
APPROPRIATION/pro
perties
Exclusion/
Exclusion
EXCLUSIVE
Bien
/real estates
Aliénation/alienati
on
ABSOLUTE
Public
/ public
EXTERNE/exter
nal
precapitalistc precapitalist precapitalistc precapitalistc
ALLIANCE
/union
precapitalist precapitalist precapitalist precapitalistc
INTERNE
/internal
precapitalistc precapitalistc precapitalistc precapitalistc
Privé
/private
Ownership

CONCLUSION
Behind a revival of the Commons
• A new ecomony of sharing and solidarity ?
• But cruelty of our societies
• A « Co »- civilisation ?
co-working, co-tenancy, renting of cars, bicycles, and so on.
• What links with an « Uberization » of the life ?
And precarious ways of life
Thanks for your attention