What do the drinking water, a forest or a square have in common with the health of citizens or the streams of knowledge that flow in the web? The answer is that all these are 'common goods' not owned by single individuals or by the State. It is paradoxical that such a clear evidence only since a few years focus the attention of a growing number of lawyers, philosophers, anthropologists, up to become the object of a veritable manifesto like this. This book aims to bring out the 'revolutionary potential' of the notion of 'common goods' . With clear and engaging writing, Mattei guides the reader to discover the different ways in which the 'looting' of the common goods work and to the knowledge of the most significant movements that have foreshadowed new scenarios.

Ugo Mattei teaches Civil Law at the University of Turin and the International and Comparative Law at the University of California. He was vice-president of the Rodotà Commission for the reform of public goods, co-editor of the referendum questions for the water as common good, and sponsored their eligibility to the Constitutional Court.