The Global Commons Weblog

Dr. Vandana Shiva engages here in a debate concerning microcredit. Shiva’s argues that microcredit is a form of enclosure in the sense that it not only takes the land from the workers thus appropriating their very means of susistence, but it encloses workers and the land within a cycle of dependence – dependence on an economic system that ladens people with debt. The economic theory behind microcredit is similar to that of structural adjustment measures imposed by IMF and the World Bank.

The Cockburn video is made up of images of enclosure – the destruction of the commons.