We are a country with an abundant water supply that nonetheless suffers flooding, shortages and recurring flouting of regulations, while private water companies walk off with massive dividends. For the economist Guy Standing, who popularised the term “the precariat”, this is a classic example of plundering the “commons” – ie our natural shared wealth.
In practice, laws were bent or changed and land that was once open to all locals was progressively swallowed up by the powerful aristocracy. A succession of royal land raids, peaking with Henry VIII, followed by a prolonged campaign of enclosures, meant that the roughly 50% of land that was held to be commons at the time of the Charter of the Forest has dwindled to just 5% today.
Standing raises the familiar spectre of neoliberalism as the guilty culprit, particularly in the post-Thatcher years. There are many examples to back up this thesis and, despite the inevitable simplifications, it’s one that deserves to be reheard. However, implicit in that critique is a sense of the halcyon communal days of the pre-Thatcher era, when the commons were a dreamy idyll to which we yearn to return. The reality is that public services were often very poor and public spaces underfunded and neglected.
That old Oscar Wilde line about people who know the price of everything and the value of nothing will never lose relevance. But the removal of price does not necessitate the appreciation of value. Standing has produced a significant contribution to a debate that is going to become increasingly critical as resources dwindle and consumption grows.
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