"But most have never heard of its arguably more important twin, the Charter of the Forest, issued two years later in 1217.
"This short but powerful document guaranteed the rights of commoners to common lands, which they could use for farming, grazing, water and wood. It gave official recognition to a right that humans nearly everywhere had long just presupposed: that no one should be debarred from the resources necessary for livelihood.
"But this right – the right of habitation – came under brutal attack beginning in the 15th century, when wealthy nobles began fencing off common lands for their own profit. Over the next few centuries, the enclosure movement, as it came to be known, shifted tens of millions of acres into private hands, displacing much of the country’s population. Excluded from the basic means of survival, most were left with no choice but to sell themselves for wages for the first time.
"And it wasn’t only England. The same process unfolded across Asia and Africa and most of the global south as European colonisers staked private claim to lands and forests and waterways that were previously held in common, leaving millions dispossessed," Hickel adds.
"But this right – the right of habitation – came under brutal attack beginning in the 15th century, when wealthy nobles began fencing off common lands for their own profit. Over the next few centuries, the enclosure movement, as it came to be known, shifted tens of millions of acres into private hands, displacing much of the country’s population. Excluded from the basic means of survival, most were left with no choice but to sell themselves for wages for the first time.
"And it wasn’t only England. The same process unfolded across Asia and Africa and most of the global south as European colonisers staked private claim to lands and forests and waterways that were previously held in common, leaving millions dispossessed," Hickel adds.
Indeed, the process continues in many countries, including post-colonial countries which continue to dispossess indigenous people.
In the context of the argument of a universal basic income, what's interesting is that Hickel bases his argument on a right to share in the commons.
"Critics of basic income often get hung up on how to fund it. But once we come to see it as linked to the commons, that problem becomes more tractable," he argues, giving the modern day example of the US state of Alaska, where "natural resources are considered a commons, owned collectively by the people, so every resident receives an annual dividend from the state’s oil revenues."
