The authors of the American constitution were well schooled in the Athenian democracy that recognized the principle of civic virtue and the need for the occasional subordination of private interest on behalf of the common good.

 They admired the Greeks who believed that the people had rights and obligations established not only to protect their private interests but to defend both the public and the private interests equally. 

Athenians thought that the most desirable life was the life in a polis, where each citizen found ultimate fulfillment through political participation and civic action. Later, Romans were inspired by this same spirit to distinguish between three types of property: res privatæ, res publicæ and res communes. The first consisted of individual possessions, the second of public buildings, works and roads. The third of natural and common inheritances included air, water and wild animals. This idea was codified in the Institutes of Justinian, the grand summation of Roman law, which said: “By the law of nature these things are common to mankind — the air, running water, the sea, and consequently the shore of the sea.”

In 1215, the Magna Carta established forests and fisheries as res communes, and throughout the Middle Ages, the idea of the Commons persisted as shared lands for common use by all-those known as "commoners". In early America, four states — Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Kentucky — called themselves Commonwealths in this spirit making the idea of the Commons visibly evident in the public area of the town, often called the "Commons" which was reserved as an area for cultural celebration and public demonstration.

The idea of the Commons stands at the heart of the civic imagination. It reflects a time before private ownership became the primary touchstone of human relations. A time before commodification turned us from “citizens” to “consumers”.

Unfortunately, like the pristine wilderness, the idea of the Commons is a fragile inheritance. It survives only as long as there are adequate shared beliefs and public rituals to hold it in place. These shared beliefs derive from a sense of unanimity that cannot thrive in an environment of greed. Without the “social capital” of this shared value, there will gradually come what historians have called an “enclosure” of the Commons. This is when, as countless other times in history, the huge vehicles of wealth and power are allowed to claim possession of shared resources from the public sphere. Frequently this is done in partnership with the government in the name of a perceived threat to the common interest like, say, a war, or a religious crusade. 

They hang the man and flog the woman 

That steal the goose from off the common,

But let the greater villain loose

That steals the common from the goose.

 - English folk poem, circa 1764