The Blue Commons Rescuing the Economy of the Sea

The Blue Commons: Rescuing the Economy of the Sea is Guy Standing’s critique of the growing privatization and commercial exploitation of the world’s oceans. He argues that the sea should be understood as a shared global commons—essential to life, food systems, coastal livelihoods, and climate stability—rather than as a resource base for corporate extraction and financial profit. Standing examines pressures including industrial overfishing, seabed mining, marine pollution and waste, rising ocean temperatures, and the capture of marine resources by powerful corporations and states. He describes this system as “rentier capitalism”: profit-making based largely on controlling, enclosing, or extracting value from resources rather than creating broadly shared social value. The book proposes a “Blue Commons” alternative that places the rights and knowledge of fishers, Indigenous peoples, coastal communities, and other ocean-dependent communities at the center of marine governance. Its proposed toolkit includes stronger commons-based legal principles, community participation and control, reforms to international ocean governance, and trust or capital funds that could provide common dividends and support sustainable local blue economies.