This article is part of ourEconomy's 'Decolonising the economy' series.
‘Reclaiming the commons’ is an important slogan of our times. It is about taking control, redistributing resources and confronting the despondency of extreme inequality. However, the question of how this is to be achieved remains open. In an earlier article in this series, we were informed of the dangers of associating the idea of public ownership with the rise of transnational state capital. The role of expanding transnational state capital in its various manifestations, including sovereign wealth funds, greenfield investments, state-led foreign direct investments (FDI) and the internationalisation of state-owned enterprises (SOEs), was rightfully framed in relation to unsustainable practices, aggressive takeovers and a general tendency of usurping that which falls within the public interest.
Within this broader context, the article specified three major critiques of state capital, including its ability to mimic the practices of private competing market participants, its capture of domestic elites and its ownership of fossil-fuel companies. A discussion of these problematic facts was then followed by an alternative solution of ‘reclaiming the commons’. This included promoting a strategy of localism, as well as an emphasis on understanding the globalised nature of economies.
