Commons

The commons is the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, including natural materials such as air, water, and a habitable earth. These resources are held in common, not owned privately.

The term "commons" derives from the traditional English legal term of common land, also known colloquially as "Commons". However, while common land might have been owned collectively, by a legal entity, the crown or a single person, it was subject to different forms of regulated usage, such as grazing of livestock, hunting, lopping of foliage or collecting resins. In distinction, the term commons in modern economic theory has come to refer to the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, such as air, water, and a habitable earth.

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