askchapo

communal land management and ownership is our collective past and our brightest future. it is the very antithesis of dispossession and enclosure. it is the biggest threat to capitalism and the neoliberal order. this is why it was and is still ruthlessly targeted by capitalists, because it represents a real, working alternative. removing land as a commodity from the networks of global capital is key to another world.

it is still around in some tucked away places and functions as the best tool of resistance to resource exploitation and environmental destruction, poverty etc, allowing room for sustainable development and equity. it can have different mechanisms, like trusts with elected boards and multi-year leases (lifetime, non transferable, 99 year, etc) for land stewards submitting routine conservation plans allowing individual households and groups to tend their own spaces but also contribute to the maintenance of shared resources (rivers, wells, forests, roads, other infrastructure) and distribution of wealth associated with captured surplus wind, solar, tidal energy while engaging in general land stewardship practices democratically selected. no more fragmented little settler kingdoms, pretending to be self contained, waiting for manorialism to gobble up the small and struggling into bloated estates where only the Right Kind of People may enjoy and recreate. it's working people, coming together, and sharing in the successes and failures of their neighbors and recognizing the shared resources they all depend on.

in a world that was trying to actually survive climate change and provide healthy food to all its inhabitants as a universal human right, communal land ownership and management would be the foundation of an equitable exchange of development resources and technology transfer: the people on the land maintain it and provision portable energy, clean water, food, textiles, building materials for those downstream in exchange for access to resources not present, manufactured materials, expertise, and other resources available through the broader, interconnected world.

trusts and boards can be configured many different ways, with all residents electing the board and all residents being required to vote on certain issues yearly while the board just handles organizational minutae. communities living in close relationship with the natural resources they depend on can have so many configurations, there isn't a one-size-fits-all arrangement and it takes time and energy to establish something site specific, democratic, equitable, and lasting. it can start small with an identified need ("we need fiber internet or reliable electricity, let's pool our resources and start a co-op") and then grow to recognize community resources that can be sustainably managed to meet those needs.

it absolutely forms when the broader society doesn't adopt rules and laws that actively undermine it or allow "investors" to send in their agents to monkeywrench it with disturbing precision. basically, it persists in places where capitalists currently can't pencil out a big enough ROI and/or the state doesn't allow remote/absentee ownership and landlordism.