It is possible that in a real sense the commons, a resource used by a population, defines the community. The village commons where milk cows and incidental livestock are kept by right does define the participatory village. One does not have to graze a cow on the commons to be a villager but one does have to have the regulated right to do so, regulated right as managed by the commons steward, elected, appointed, or inherited.
An oasis is definitively a commons and is stewarded by inherited privilege of office. It serves a tithe paying population that is constricted by voluntary agreement and birth, the tribe, a type of political economy. One does not just drink from the well. One is allowed to drink from the well. It is a polity organized around a common resource, a commons.
The village chieftain, a form of elementary steward of common resources, is a very serious figure in much of the world, however selected.
All of these illustrations have prefigured the full discussion in Part 3 of the Concept of a Commons in modern society.
Do Well and Be Well.
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