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Category: Governance and Structure

Why Commons Capitalism Took So Long to Emerge

Reference code: C26-01 Most people assume that, if an idea is sound, someone would have built it already. Commons Capitalism invites that assumption because the core concept is simple: keep markets and competition, but forbid private capture of surplus. If that is all it is, why did it not show up decades ago, fully formed, […]

A Keynesian Critique of Commons Capitalism

Reference code: C25-20 Why Keynes Would Pay Attention John Maynard Keynes would not have approached Commons Capitalism as a moral manifesto. He would have approached it as a machine: Does it keep employment high, keep investment steady, and keep the economy from falling into avoidable slumps? From that angle, Commons Capitalism is immediately interesting because […]

Commons Capitalism and Ixtlán as “Market Enterprise Without Private Residual Claimants”

Reference code: C25-19 Ixtlán de Juárez is an Indigenous community in Oaxaca, Mexico, frequently discussed as an example of a high-functioning communal commons that operates sophisticated market-facing enterprises. The community is widely associated with community forestry and with operating commercial ventures connected to forest management and value-added production. The point for comparative purposes is not […]

Polycentric Governance Augmented by Worker Input

Reference code: C25-18 Polycentric Governance and Worker Input as Downturn Resilience A CCE is structurally positioned to weather economic stress better than a conventional firm, not because it is insulated from markets, but because its governance is designed to gather better information, make better decisions under uncertainty, and execute difficult adjustments with higher internal legitimacy. […]

Polycentric Governance Tends to Outperform Traditional Capitalist Governance

Reference code: C25-16 The Concentrated-Power Problem in Traditional Capitalism In a conventional capitalist firm, economic authority tends to collapse into a single dominant center even when the org chart looks more complex. Shareholders (or the capital markets that discipline them) set the value target, the board sets the strategic frame, and senior management controls the […]

Executive Role and Board Stewardship

Reference code: C25-11 This commentary is one of a two-part set of commentaries that examines the principles and practical design choices involved in Small Scale Commons Governance. Part Two─Executive Role and Board Stewardship Within this compact design, the role of an executive director or equivalent senior manager requires careful handling. The temptation in a small […]

Smaller Structures with the Same Core

Reference code: C25-10 This commentary is one of a two-part set of commentaries that examines the principles and practical design choices involved in Small Scale Commons Governance. Part One─Designing Small Scale Commons Governance This commentary is the first part of a two-part guide on how small commons corporations can streamline boards and roles while preserving […]

Professional Fields with a Stake in Commons Capitalism

Reference code: C25-09 Commons capitalism represents a departure from familiar corporate and nonprofit structures. By separating stewardship authority from market-facing operations, and by requiring subsidiaries to pursue the highest achievable net profits while the parent corporation preserves consolidated surplus for internal purposes, it introduces a new architecture of enterprise design. Because this model diverges sharply […]

Scaling Shared Wealth Through a Commons Capitalism Entity

Reference code: C25-06 Executive Summary A purpose-built commons capitalism entity that centralizes surplus, holds subsidiaries, and pursues acquisitions delivers distinct economic advantages over a typical worker cooperative in three interlocking ways. First, the legal and financial design of a parent commons capitalism entity enables deliberate, rapid expansion by acquiring existing firms and folding them into […]

Managing a Nonprofit Enterprise with Stewarded Surplus

Reference code: C25-05 Introduction and Core Function The design of a nonprofit enterprise without members or shareholders that distributes decision authority across multiple centers and treats net profits as stewarded surplus produces a distinctive institutional model. The structure differs from conventional corporate arrangements because residual gains are not distributed to private parties. Instead, retained surplus […]