There are many terms that are adjacent to the concept of community motive and community-led universal basic services. I am grateful for the knowledge shared by so many scholars, practitioners, and activists.
Back to the Land
A movement that advocates for people to turn to smallholder farming to preserve personal autonomy and self-sufficiency. At its core, this movement pushes back against the continued consumerism of society and seeks to produce things at a more human scale.
Commons
A simple definition of commons would be resources that are shared by a community. The Tragedy of the Commons is an influential 1968 article by Garrett Hardin that claims that common resources will be exploited by individuals, ultimately resulting in the decline of those common resources. However, Ostrom refuted this theory with numerous examples of successful commons, and outlined criteria for governing the commons.
Degrowth
A movement that advocates for societies to focus not on continued economic growth as an overarching goal but rather to use fewer resources and prioritize social and ecological well-being. For a more in-depth study, please see Parrique 2019.
Doughnut Economics
This book by Kate Raworth pushes back against standard growth-based assumptions and advocates that nations should develop enough to provide a dignified social foundation, but not develop so much that they exceed ecological limits.
Integral Human Development
Derived from Catholic social teaching, integral human development takes a holistic, complex view towards the development of a person—not just economic, but also cultural, political, spiritual, and social.
Jevons’ Paradox
The observation that as technology advances to make it easier to use a resource, we will ultimately end up using more of that resource.
Planetary Boundaries
Looking beyond greenhouse-gas emissions, there are other planetary limits that should be considered by society and policymakers. The Stockholm Resilience Center has identified nine such boundaries, including loss of biodiversity, release of novel entities into the environment (e.g., plastics), and ocean acidification.
Rights of Nature (Buen Vivir)
Buen vivir (“living well”) describes alternatives to the Western development paradigm. Drawing from diverse and indigenous knowledges, buen vivir advocates seek to re-establish the rights of nature as opposed to development that prioritizes human needs over nature. Ecuador and Bolivia have both taken constitutional steps towards re-establishing the rights of nature.
Social Capital
We can think of social capital as the networks and relationships between people in a community that allow that community to function.
Universal Basic Income
The idea that governments should provide all citizens with income to at least meet their needs, without a means test.
Universal Basic Services
Universal Basic Services are a set of public services that would be funded by taxation and freely provided by governments to ensure all citizens’ access to safety, opportunity, and participation. These services include healthcare, education, legal services, shelter, food, transport, and information.
Work Sharing
The idea that a society can intentionally reduce working hours. Typically, this situation would result in unemployment, but if work could be shared by reducing work time for all, then unemployment could be avoided.