Land as Commons: Building the New Economy, Schumacher Center Series
George Monbiot delivered the 40th Annual E. F. Schumacher Lecture on October 25th. Titled Private Sufficiency, Public Luxury: Land is the Key to the Transformation of Society, the talk was followed by a question period hosted by Jodie Evans and joined by Greg Watson.
In his talk, Monbiot pointed to the dominant narrative about land, which assumes private ownership and control of land may be secured by purchase and that there is no limit to the amount of land so held. However, the purchase of land in the pursuit of private luxury means excluding use by others for basic sufficiency. There is simply not enough land to allocate a surplus for all.
Greg Watson’s first question to Monbiot was to ask, "how are we to change that narrative?" Monbiot was grateful for the question, saying that narrative is at the heart of all political change, but is often ignored. He pointed specifically to the power of the Restoration Narrative.The video is archived here and embedded below.