The Quilligan Seminars

12 interrelated seminars in 12 days, led by the globally renowned commons theorist/activist James Quilligan designed to foster an educational and research collaboration for facilitating transition to a more equitable world—and demonstrating how differing starting points can lead to a commons ground.


The organisations convening the seminars included: Finance Innovation LabWestminster HubSt. James PiccadillyInstitute for Public Policy ResearchNew Economics FoundationCivil Society Forum, and the School of Commoning, and the kick-off seminar was hosted in the House of Commons.

Starting from many different points of engaged intellectual and social concern, research and practice, the various seminars explored the understanding of the Commons as perceived from each seminar’s perspective. Together, they represent an emergent curriculum of theoretically grounded and action-oriented studies in the key economic, political, and social issues of the Commons.

The seminars examined questions such as:

  • Economically, what steps are needed to adjust the rules of the present interest-driven, debt-based economy to the sustainable targets of our natural, social and cultural commons?
  • Politically, how can the philosophy of individual wealth (ownership, division of labor, reciprocity) be reconciled with the interests of collective wealth (trusteeship, the unity of producers and consumers, complementarity)?
  • Socially, would it be possible for people's trusts to create sustainable limits to protect our commons for future generations, then rent the remaining resources to business for production and distribution, and provide these revenues to government for the funding of social dividends and the restoration of the depleted commons?

These vital and complex questions do not have easy answers – and the investigation into how the “commons” may connect and synergise the economic, social, philosophical, spiritual, and political spheres, and facilitate the great transition to an equitable and sustainable world, is an ongoing challenge.

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The Emergence of a Commons-Based Economy
The Quilligan Seminars
01: Democratising the Global Political Commons
02: Political Economy and the Inclusive Commons
03: Restoring the Commons or Terminal Decline
04: Financial Innovation and the Commons
05: Property, Value and Commons
06: The Crowd and the Commons
07: Covenant Stewardship and the Inclusive Commons
08: The Great Transition and the Commons
09: Organisational Practice and ‘The Commons'
10: The Commons and New Era Economics
11: Convergence Working Group
12: Convergence for a Commons-Based Economy
Commons Rising -- Working Group
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