n a t b s

Property is an interesting concept. I’m not sure like it very much, at least in the theoretical sense. I guess I’m referring primarily to land ownership. How can people own land? It’s a tempting concept, and it brings a sense of stability to say “This is my piece of the Earth.” There are some major problems with this idea however. Perhaps it’s your designated or claimed piece of the Earth. And maybe there’s a huge institution willing to aggressively back you up on that claim. But it is not your land. It’s everyone’s land. No one can claim it any more than anyone else can. This should be obvious, it’s why you need guns to maintain land ownership. Indians were here first, but oh shit the colonists had guns (and small pox, and no morals), so I guess it’s not their land anymore.

I suppose that bit of perceived stability provides the entire basis for society. But is it right, and is it worth it? By giving people ownership you give them a foundation on which to build something. You also give them a means to exploit other people. “Come be my farm hand, I’ll pay you” means little more than “come help me work the land. Do as much or more work than me, but since it’s my land I reap most of the benefits.” If you’re both working the land shouldn’t you both reap similar benefits? The person who owns the land simply paid tribute to the last asshole to claim it for himself.

Intellectual property also provides a similar platform for wealth and exploitation:

“I have this idea, so give me money.”

“But you showed it to me, so now I have it and we can both benefit from it”

“Sorry, you can only benefit from it if you give me money”

The concept of ownership makes more sense with intellectual property, although it still makes no sense whatsoever*. With intellectual property you have created something. With land, it’s just there. It has always been there, it’s not made by people but simply claimed by them. People don’t own land, they take land and they violently defend land. Remember the Alamo?

Can we all share land? I don’t know. It seems a little idealistic, but I still think it’s important to point out the fact that it’s ridiculous to say you own something that you found. Our whole society, when you boil it down, is based on the concept of finders keepers. That’s an oversimplification, but there is truth to it. We have an immature society whose cornerstones are selfishness, greed, violence, intimidation and fear.

There is cause to be hopeful though. We are slowly maturing. We might make it, or we might fall under our own stubborn selfishness. But we need to be careful during this period of growth; the status quo is quite powerful and it will violently and aggressively defend it’s “property.”

*The fallacy, however, in the intellectual property argument above is that people don’t create that either per se. They draw on countless ideas presented by others, or presented by nature. They pull it out of the ether where it and every other bit of possible information exists waiting to be tapped into by our imaginations. Also, enforcement is severely crippled by the infinite duplicability of information.

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