Can humanity change course in order to avert catastrophe? My intuitive answer is that it may not be able to. I believe it is probably already too late to avoid ecological collapse. However, I answered with a “may” and a “probably” because I hope I am wrong. I hope there is hope. But even if there is not, it is still worth trying.
This article is a condensed version of a piece to be published in the journal “Automaton” under the same title.
In response to calls to accept that there is no alternative to the dominant system, known as capitalism, I will tell a story of hope about a movement that creates the world it wants within the world it seeks to transcend. I will speak about the hopes I draw from the small miracles that people have achieved together. Before doing so, let us take a walk on the dark side of technology, where my research began.
The dark side of technology
In 2007, when I first began studying technology, I was captivated by its promises. I imagined a world where every problem would be solved with a “smart” gadget or an app. But the more I delved into it, the more I realised the complex consequences of this approach. I saw how the production of high-tech devices depended on the exploitation of people and ecosystems in places that we, in the so-called “developed” world, never see.
I believed that technology would lead us to a world of zero greenhouse gas emissions, to “green growth”. But is sustainability possible in an economy that constantly seeks to expand, where Gross Domestic Product (GDP) must increase every year? The usual answer is: “Yes, it is. Through high technology.” Smart electric cars and buses, large wind turbines on mountains, and vast solar parks across plains and deserts.
What is less often said is that these so-called green “miracles” do not account for the greenhouse gas emissions they generate elsewhere in the world. If they did, they would not appear green at all. High technology is deeply connected to global inequalities of wealth and to the climate crisis. We pay, and a smartphone arrives in our hands as a finished product. This monetary transaction conceals the processes taking place beyond our view. The production, maintenance and disposal of high technologies involve significant amounts of energy, toxic waste and labour under harsh conditions.
We rarely think about how our phone was designed in the United States, manufactured in China, using raw materials from Congo, Chile and Indonesia, and transported through multiple countries. Those who glorify modern technology overlook something else: the more efficient technologies become, the more we tend to use them, because GDP must keep growing. As a result, instead of emissions decreasing, they increase. Some people, such as the ultra-wealthy, use these technologies far more intensively, with environmental footprints millions of times greater than those of the average person.
How are environmental sins washed away?
As awareness of the negative impacts of high technology grows, many organisations and businesses seek ways to offset their environmental footprint. One common method for supposedly achieving climate neutrality is carbon offsetting. For example, carbon offsetting was a key tool in the organisation of the World Cup in Qatar. What does this mean? That one can effectively purchase the right to pollute. You pollute in Qatar and say: “It’s fine. I will plant trees somewhere else or build a solar park elsewhere.”
Do these offsets work? It is very difficult to control where the money actually goes. There are many cases where offset projects have created additional problems for local ecosystems, especially in areas inhabited by Indigenous populations. Moreover, numerous studies show that the vast majority of offset projects have failed to deliver on their promises.
The problem is not technical
What is needed is a political solution, not a technological one. Contemporary technologies can help. However, the political framework is decisive: who will give up some of their privileges for the benefit of the many and the environment? How long will we tolerate the human misery produced in order to maximise the financial gains of a handful of ultra-wealthy individuals?
On the one hand, capitalism has brought economic “growth” and technological development. The average citizen of the developed world has access to benefits and comforts that only a feudal aristocrat once enjoyed. But not without a cost, one that cannot be captured in numbers. What figure could express the exploitation of human beings by other human beings, or the destruction of natural ecosystems?
Capitalism is not a blessing. It is an unstable, undemocratic and unsustainable system. It has created, and continues to create, profound inequalities and ecological destruction. The comforts and benefits enjoyed by a few come at the expense of the lives of people, animals and plants across the planet.
There is another path
In 2009, Elinor Ostrom became the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Economics (see Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990). Ostrom, together with generations of researchers she inspired, highlighted numerous examples in which local communities successfully manage their common goods without the need for state intervention or privatisation.
What, then, are the commons? The commons constitute an economic, social and political system with deep historical roots, dating back to the earliest human societies (see Silke Helfrich and David Bollier, Free, Fair and Alive: The Insurgent Power of the Commons, Nefeli, Athens, 2022). They involve resources that communities manage according to rules they themselves establish. In contrast to capitalism, where owners are the ones who decide, in the commons it is those who use a resource or participate in its production who co-decide. Thus, the commons imply self-management and autonomy. Power from below. In other words, a deepening of democracy.
From digital to material commons
Since the mid-1990s, with the widespread diffusion of the internet, the commons have re-emerged dynamically. Networked computers can interact, and behind them are people who now possess a tool that enables interaction on a global scale.
In the early 2000s, most people would have found the idea of an open, free digital encyclopaedia absurd, one in which a globally dispersed community of thousands would voluntarily contribute content. And yet, the free encyclopaedia Wikipedia drove Microsoft’s Encarta out of the market. Today, the free software GNU/Linux powers the world’s 500 most powerful computers, while Apache and nginx are the most widely used web server software.
Commons-based production has proven successful in the domain of software and information. However, its application to the production of material goods and infrastructures seemed inconceivable to many. I was among those “eccentrics” who believed in the power of human cooperation and in the struggle to democratise knowledge and technology.
Designs, knowledge and software are produced collaboratively and shared globally as commons. At the same time, both new and older manufacturing technologies are available in shared workshops. In this way, communities design a wide range of objects, from agricultural machinery and wind turbines to satellites, prosthetic limbs and houses. Everything “light” (such as designs, knowledge and software) becomes global, while everything “heavy” (such as machinery) remains local and, ideally, shared.
Examples from the real world
Small-scale farmers in France need agricultural machinery for their work. Large multinational companies produce equipment designed for industrial-scale agriculture. In response, a community of farmers in southern France decided to produce their own machinery, creating a cooperative called L’Atelier Paysan. The community shares its tool designs and know-how with the world as a global digital common. At the same time, a community of small-scale farmers in the United States created a non-profit network called Farm Hack και έκανε το ίδιο. and followed a similar approach. The two communities now communicate, collaborate and develop synergies.
Another example comes from the field of energy. In the village of Mithal in south-western Nepal, residents wanted to electrify a small community clinic. They connected with groups of scientists and engineers working on small-scale wind turbines. Together, drawing on open designs and collectively produced knowledge, they built a wind turbine locally. With the support of the global network Wind Empowerment, similar turbines have been constructed in various parts of the world.
There are also such initiatives in Greece. The organisation Libre Space, which emerged from the hackerspace.gr community space in Athens, is a non-profit organisation working on open-source space technologies. In 2017, in collaboration with the University of Patras, it launched the first Greek nanosatellite into space using exclusively open hardware and software.
These initiatives are not isolated cases, but part of global networks striving to democratise knowledge and technology.
Towards a model of fair and sustainable development
This model offers multiple benefits. First, it reduces the need for global supply chains and long-distance transportation, as a significant share of production becomes localised. Second, localisation allows for better adaptation to local needs and conditions. Third, open design and the global exchange of knowledge enable the continuous improvement and adaptation of products, enhancing their sustainability and longevity. Fourth, the emphasis on shared production infrastructures reduces the need for overproduction and overconsumption. Finally, this model encourages repair and reuse, as local communities possess the knowledge and tools to maintain and adapt their products, thereby reducing waste.
Even today, it may seem remarkable that we are able to produce so many things under conditions far more cooperative than the competitive logic of capitalism. Seeds of a new world can be found in the examples described above, a world based on the sharing of resources and their collective management, that is, on the commons. In such a world, people do not produce solely out of the drive to maximise monetary profit. It thus becomes clear that competition and strict patents are not the essence of progress and innovation.
In conventional capitalist firms, workers are hired, managed, and directed through the production process, and the resulting goods are sold on the market with the aim of maximising profit. By contrast, in examples of technological commons, anyone who feels able to contribute can participate under conditions of autonomy. Some may be paid, but not all.
The benefits, however, are not limited to wages or profit. Those who contribute also learn, communicate, create, and may even earn an income, though not with the aim of maximising it. There is a fine line between generating profit and maximising it. The latter leads to the relentless exploitation of people and natural ecosystems.
Undoubtedly, capitalism remains the dominant system today. Yet other systems exist within it, including the commons. The commons have both capitalist and post-capitalist dimensions. On the one hand, many of the initiatives described above rely for their economic viability on alliances with the dominant system. On the other hand, they challenge its core, pointing towards alternative pathways.
One last thing about the future
I do not know whether the commons will solve all our problems. But I do know that they offer something we urgently need: hope. Seeds of change are growing everywhere. In every corner of the world, communities are working to make the commons a reality. At the same time, I may be naïve. The challenges may simply be too great. I do not know what the world will look like in 10, 20, or 50 years. But I do know that the choices we make today about how we develop technology will shape that future.
Ultimately, the real power of the commons does not lie in technologies or products themselves. It lies in the people who create, use, enrich, and share them. It lies in the relationships we build with one another and in the stories we create as we face collapse head-on.