What’s seldom recognised, however, is how the global conversation on sharing is often conducted implicitly and unknowingly by campaigners, activists and progressive analysts. For example, in the now mainstream discussion on how to reform the systems and structures that lead to inequality, there is the implicit question of how to share resources more equally among society as a whole. While the best-selling economist Thomas Piketty has recently forewarned the prospect of an increasingly unequal future, the authors of The Spirit Level have already demonstrated that the most prosperous, happy and healthy nations all distribute their wealth in a more egalitarian fashion. In this way, relating the principle of sharing with economic and social policy is clearly important for debates on eradicating poverty and reversing extreme inequality, as it directly points to the need for distributive justice and long-term structural solutions that cut to the heart of how we organise societies.
Similarly, in the international discussions on sustainable development there is an implicit focus on the need for greater economic sharing, which frames the basic challenge of how to ensure that everyone can consume a fair share of resources within the Earth’s limits. Even for peace campaigners and anti-war activists, the principle of sharing is central to the problem of interstate conflict over land, fossil fuel reserves and other key industrial materials. But this imperative question is often left unspoken: how can governments find ways of sharing the environmental commons more equitably, and thus finally change trajectory from our current path towards intensified resource competition, accelerating climate change, and the eventual possibility of a third world war?
