ABSTRACT

This chapter examines under-explored elements of this terrain of struggle around the commons and the public. The commons are a terrain of struggle but it is hard to be optimistic as to the outcome of these fateful struggles given the growth of what the chapter analyses as 'offshore worlds'. It uses the term commons here to refer to a wide array of collective and/or public discourses and processes that are jeopardised by the proliferation of offshore worlds. The idea of taxation as a kind of commons increasingly threatens the world's major brands, critiqued for their aggressive tax avoidance and deliberate evading of transparency and public scrutiny. The widespread development of 'tax shaming' reveals the power of the commons to fight back. Mazzucato brings out more generally the role of public investment in generating private sector innovations. Offshoring and the effective powering down of economies and societies directly contradict each other.