A POSTCAPITALIST PARADIGM: THE COMMON GOOD OF ...

to ensure equality and free development of the person (such as knowledge).
It is a question of ensuring access to all – in other words, to a
community of commoners which comprises the whole human community
– not in obeisance to an abstract universalism of an illuminist-leaning
mode, but because life itself and the quality and dignity of life, as well
as social justice, are dependent on access to these primary and non-optional
Commons.
In numerous societies, access to many primary Commons, and the opportunity
to enjoy and use them, is not “immediate” but “mediated” by
structures and services (services of general interest or public services):
to give an example, in a large metropolis, people get water in their
houses though a water service and do not go straight to the river themselves
(shanty-towns and poor areas, on the other hand, are mainly excluded
from the service, usually run by large private multinational
companies). Therefore these very services themselves become Commons,
that is to say, they are claimed as such, both in the north and the
south of the world. This does not only mean claiming that access to
water must fall outside the logic of markets, but also claiming self-government
and democratic participation in the management of the service.
And so as far as primary or fundamental Commons are concerned –
which are sometimes called common goods of humanity – there can be
no discrimination in the right to access, just as collective rules are
needed to avoid abuse and over-exploitation by individuals, in the case
of finite and rival resources. In other words, there is a structural link between
fundamental commons and fundamental rights: it is precisely the
specific nature of these goods which makes them primary and fundamental,
because their function is that of satisfying collective primary
needs and actually implementing the fundamental rights of every human
being. Consequently, the governance and management of fundamental
Commons must be such as to guarantee universal access to the good
and must entail direct participatory management (self-government of
the good) by the community.
It is clear that the primary and irreplaceable commons do not cover the
whole range of existing or imaginable commons. Although not covering
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