A multitude of possibilities

While this concept covers very similar ground to the idea of the commons discussed in this issue, Hardt and Negri prefer to use the term in the singular to highlight the novelty of new forms of shared capacities emerging from 'immaterial production', distinguishing it from pre-capitalist shared spaces that were destroyed by the advent of private property. The mainstream European left also I think shares this sense of nostalgia for traditional social forms and communities, though this is played out less in laments about individualism and more in terms of sterile repetitions of community rites, often, though not exclusively, linked to stronger traditions of political parties and trade unions.