The path through an uncertain future - Rebuild community by reclaiming the commons

In a time of unprecedented uncertainty, community is the way through whatever we must face.

4 minute read

It is hard to recall a time when uncertainties have been so great or come from so many directions.

In the U.S., the sense of having a stable, reliable political system seems gone. Trump has breached so many boundaries, upset the balance of the three branches of government. He has openly flouted court orders, and assumed to himself powers reserved to Congress. Notably, by refusing to spend money Congress has allocated. The Supreme Court just seems to go along with an unprecedented expansion of executive power.

In the economy in general, jobs are being cut while people wonder if AI is coming for theirs. At the same time, AI is driving what looks like an unsustainable investment bubble. Responsible for most economic growth and increased stock market valuations, a popped bubble could set off a deep recession, or even worse. It’s not the only bubble. Several real estate sectors also look sketchy.

But the greatest uncertainty, and the one from which the world seems to be turning its attention, is the increasing heating of the climate. Temperatures are at or near record levels, while climate pollution concentrations in the atmosphere have never been greater. Scientists are having a lively debate over whether temperature increases are accelerating. German scientists recently made a terrifying statement lining out the possibility of an absolutely catastrophic 3 deg. C rise by 2050. Meanwhile, the Trump Administration is doing all it can to gut climate action, while Europe and many corporations are staging retreats on net zero commitments. Meanwhile, severe flooding is hitting all over the world, including record river levels in my own wet state of Washington.

It is hard to live through such times, though most of us in the U.S. have it easy compared to people living in war torn regions such as Gaza, Sudan and Congo. Nonetheless, the voices of those who say we are headed for some kind of collapse here are on the rise. A new depression, a second civil war, these seem like more real possibilities than they have in a long time.

How do we make it through these times? A key is to understand the common thread running through the uncertainties that confront us. It is a loss of a sense of the common good, of community, of the commons themselves, in the face of rising corporate and oligarchic power.

In the U.S., long efforts by the oligarchic elite to divide and rule have set people and regions against it other and made it almost impossible to address critical issues, which is the intended result. So people’s lives become more difficult and unaffordable while those same oligarchic interests accumulate money and power. Unaffordable housing, grocery bills that amount to what rent used to cost, a health care system that delivers poor results for high costs, all while corporate profits in these sectors explode.

The AI bubble is driven by promises of increased “productivity,” though so far that doesn’t seem to be panning out. But “productivity” is really a codeword for automating out jobs. Again, corporate and oligarchic interests are serving their own ends without reference to the common good.

Towering over all this is the climate crisis, fueled by the insatiable greed of the fossil fuel industry and its allies. In no area is the ravaging of the global commons for private interests more stark, or the need to reclaim the commons more crucial.

We don’t know what is going to happen. We have no way of knowing how these uncertainties will work out. But one path stands as the way through whatever we must face. It is to rebuild community by reclaiming the common good, to reclaim the commons themselves. We instinctively understand this, and are pursuing this along multiple routes. Recent triumphs of municipal election candidates promising to address the affordable crisis through city action are a prominent example. So are efforts to create public banking, to institute single-payer health plans in states, to build social housing, and to drive forward clean energy and climate action at local and state levels. The revival of the bioregional movement over recent years is another example of people seeking to reclaim the commons in its most basic sense, the common natural places in which we live. Each of these efforts exhibits a unifying thread, an assertion of the common good over private interests, a strengthening of community by creating new common spaces.

In my next post I plan to lay out several scenarios for how events might unfold, with an emphasis on the U.S., and how a movement unified around the principle of rebuilding community by reclaiming the commons works through each one. We don’t have any certainty about the future, but we can be certain the way to address anything that is coming is through community. And the natural place to start, the one that is most available, is the communities where we live. We must build the future in place.