The first draft of my letter to you was almost written when the stunning news hit my desk. We, at Kosmos, are committed to introducing the ideas and principles of the commons, the first to publish the groundbreaking ideas of James B. Quilligan and to expand the field to the global scale. Now the Nobel Prize for new economics has made the ‘commons’ a household word overnight. With the foresight of a true visionary, Elinor Ostrom, the co-recipient of the economic sciences 2009 award, has spent decades researching the commons. She realized long before most of us the dire consequences to our freedom and creativity when private interests buy properties and rights that belong to all of us in common. We salute Elinor Ostrom for founding the commons field of inquiry and James B. Quilligan for expanding the theory and principles to the global scale. Read his latest article on the multilateralism of the commons in this issue.

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