From equilibrium to equity. The survival of the commons in the Ebro Basin: Navarra from the 15th to the 20th centuries

Abstract

This paper describes an historical case of management of common lands, and their survival and transformation through the great agrarian reforms of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The hypothesis is that the notion of community survived after the great rural changes caused by the emergence of capitalism and liberalism. However, the notion of community was very different after these great changes: the old community was based on the notion of equilibrium, whereas the new community is focused on equity.