ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the South African activists involved inexorably worked through socio-economic "Rights Talk" and discovered its limits in what is otherwise a celebrated liberal constitution. Those limits took many of the activists forward to a different strategy, moving through human rights narratives and identifying commons instead. The commoning strategy presents one of the most interesting current efforts at establishing an alternative economic system, based on principles and concrete victories won, from below, in pitched battles with those who would commodify even the most basic needs. The core urban neoliberal policy strategy introduced more decisive property rights to land, cost recovery for water, electricity and municipal services, fewer subsidies within state housing institutions, and expanded mortgage credit. It is also true that Big Pharma's reluctance to surrender property rights so as to meet needs in the large but far from lucrative African market coincided with the rise of philanthropic and aid initiatives to provide branded medicines.
