Costituzionalismo dei beni comuni

Constitutionalism and Commons

The paper explores recent trends in the legal and historical culture of both Europe and the Anglo- American world. Attention has turned, in Italy and elsewhere, to the constitutional dimension of private law, to collective properties and to the dynamics of the commons. This essay also analyzes, through the lens of legal and constitutional history, the dialectic between the bourgeois individualistic model, postulating the absolute power of the individual over goods, and the structure of collective properties (medieval and modern) based on the primacy of the community and the res. It eventually seeks to test the role of this dichotomy in contemporary society characterized by the crisis of modern legal forms and the emergence of alternative categories – such as, precisely, that of «the commons» – in order to rethink the foundations of democracy.

Parole chiave: Costituzionalismo; Beni comuni/ Bene comune; Proprietà; Sovranità
Keywords: Constitutionalism; Commons/commonwealth; Property; Sovereignty