Indiana

Water Flowing Underground

No one complains about the convenience of getting water from the tap, but there is something deep within us that loves drawing fresh water from the ground, the way generations of humans have done. Is it the special taste? The cool moistness of that spot of ground? Or is it the wondrous mystery that hovers around a well?

Putting People Back into Economics

Last weekend I traveled to Bloomington, Indiana, to speak at a community-organized conference on the commons. As I got up to speak, I paused and gulped: there in the audience was the pioneering scholar of the commons, Elinor Ostrom.

It was not an academic conference, but rather a gathering of 125 regular citizens at the local Unitarian-Universalist Church. Several slides in my presentation drew upon her work or mentioned her. Would she agree with my interpretations? Would I get something wrong?