A few weeks ago I wrote about how some now think that “ownership is for suckers.” Many don’t understand what I mean. They’ve now grown up in the past 20 years when most things have moved to being digital. They are told by the Keepers of the High Knowledge that all good things are digital because, well, its best that way. The Priests of the Holy Environment Movement chime in to state that its evil to actually contribute to the waste that must, surely, destroy the earth, so you don’t actually need to have that DVD, CD, Game, magazine or other thing—just make it digital.
In that post, I quoted Locke. The amazing thing to me is how many people have no idea how huge this shift is. Locke, Jefferson, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin—I mean, seriously, almost all of the great thinkers of the 16th-18th century—would be stunned with this shift. Here’s why.
If you go back to the end of the Roman Republic, a part of the fight that emerged among the people was the desire to own property. This was necessary in order to fully be a citizen in the Republic. The Empire which emerged under Octavian continued this support of property rights.
When the Empire collapsed though in the 400s, everything changed. The coming new peoples, considered Barbarians by the Romans, were more tribal. They were also more violent, so over the next 300 years, a system emerged that was designed to bring protection from violence through a collective idea—feudalism. The system also provided for a shared economic system where everyone contributed to the work either physically, or by giving up their land, or both.
As we know, between the 800s-1400s, the system became quite codified and ultimately put 95% or more of the population of a given place into a pseudo-slave type relationship with a feudal master—the nobility. In England, however, changes were being fought over, starting with the signing of the Magna Carta in the 1200s. While not a great document for the common person, especially when viewed through our eyes, at the time, it was a monumental step in breaking up the power of the feudal system.
By the 1600s, the average person in England had achieved a certain set of values, of rights, including the general idea that the citizen would generally be protected in his life, his liberty and to hold to his property. Yet, the 17th century would challenge those ideas in England, leading ultimately to the Glorious Revolution during which Locke was writing. Coming out of that, the decision had been made in England—the kings would be subject to the voice of the people, their representatives in Parliament.
Moreover, Parliament itself could have no power over the people to deprive them of their inherent rights of their person. They could not be held against their will without just cause or without being told why. They could not be tried without their peers as jury. There could be no unusual punishment. And their property was to be protected at all times.
It was this notion of property protection that became a cornerstone of life in the English colonies established on the Eastern Seaboard of the New World. It was a concern about said property rights that led those English citizens living in the New World to revolt against their government. The eventual American Revolution was, in a sense, the Americans redefining even more starkly just how much power the people had compared to the government, the King or the Parliament. The entire idea of the American Dream was never tied up in home ownership, but it was tied up in the idea of protected property rights, especially for the common people. While few could own real property in England, and no common person owned any real property in Europe, in the New World (now called the United States), ANYONE could actually spend their own money, acquire some type of property, and keep it forever. No one, no agency of government, could take it from them.
So, “ownership is for suckers?” Really?
How about this—those who give up ownership are on a direct path BACK to feudalism where an elite class controls everything, and us common people are left to only hope that they don’t deny us access to the very game, movie, music, or home that we purchased.