Uploaded February 2019 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
We’re interviewing key players in the new economy, to:
a) bring their work to a wider audience
b) try to find ways to co-ordinate their efforts
c) stimulate debate
d) help to grow the new economy.
By new economy, we mean an economy whose component parts are democratic and non-extractive, rather than undemocratic and extractive.
Here, Dave Darby of Lowimpact.org chats with Pat Conaty, senior research fellow at the New Economics Foundation.
Here's a transcript of the interview: lowimpact.org/the-commons-pat-conaty
Highlights
1. Over a billion people in the world depend on commons for some or all of their livelihood.
2. The commons is an excellent way of provisioning, but it’s a disempowered part of the economy, that’s taken for granted.
3. There should be a limit to property rights; and certain things shouldn’t be privately owned at all – like land. If land is privately owned, you’re setting up the potential to rack-rent people. Community land trusts, for example, by taking land out of the market, can reduce by half the cost of housing.
Dave Darby
lowimpact.org
noncorporate.org
Pat Conaty
neweconomics.org
https://www.uk.coop/
Other sites mentioned:
Kevin Carson’s review of the Resilience Imperative - blog.p2pfoundation.net/review-of-michael-lewis-and-pat-conaty-the-resilience-imperative/2013/03/02
We’re interviewing key players in the new economy, to:
a) bring their work to a wider audience
b) try to find ways to co-ordinate their efforts
c) stimulate debate
d) help to grow the new economy.
By new economy, we mean an economy whose component parts are democratic and non-extractive, rather than undemocratic and extractive.
Here, Dave Darby of Lowimpact.org chats with Pat Conaty, senior research fellow at the New Economics Foundation.
Here's a transcript of the interview: lowimpact.org/the-commons-pat-conaty
Highlights
1. Over a billion people in the world depend on commons for some or all of their livelihood.
2. The commons is an excellent way of provisioning, but it’s a disempowered part of the economy, that’s taken for granted.
3. There should be a limit to property rights; and certain things shouldn’t be privately owned at all – like land. If land is privately owned, you’re setting up the potential to rack-rent people. Community land trusts, for example, by taking land out of the market, can reduce by half the cost of housing.
Dave Darby
lowimpact.org
noncorporate.org
Pat Conaty
neweconomics.org
https://www.uk.coop/
Other sites mentioned:
Kevin Carson’s review of the Resilience Imperative - blog.p2pfoundation.net/review-of-michael-lewis-and-pat-conaty-the-resilience-imperative/2013/03/02
