To Own the Air -- An Odd Look at Personal Property

Capitalism, Socialism, and Green Shampoo

Suppose I live in a land where every man has a large collection of blue frock coats, in all sizes.  Moreover, each has access to more of these self-same coats at no expense whatsoever.  Does it behoove me then, upon leaving the meeting-house, to search among the coat racks until I find my own, or rather to simply take the first I find of my size?

Or suppose that everyone has access to a limitless supply of a green shampoo.  Each has many bottles stored on their own, and the stocked warehouse is free access to all.  Am I then required to always take my own to the showers?  Or can I simply use the bottle left here by someone else?

So we observe that Capitalism is necessarily based in identity and individuality.  It is individualism that declares my right to place my name upon my bottle of green shampoo, though no different from the other 3 score bottles on the shelf.  But it is Capitalism that puts the green shampoo in a purple bottle, which then displays my name.  It is the creed of Capitalism that says I have right to have a red frock coat, even when all other coats in the meeting-house are blue.  It is mine, and all men know it, because it is different.

Socialism then, requires a loss of identity and individuality.  Uniforms are prescribed, all the same color and style, so none is better than the other.  None is different from the other.  In the fabulous endless supply of all things, all men share all things as common, for all have access to all.  IF there IS is limitless supply of like things, does personal property still exist?

Is Socialism the ideal?  For there is no such thing as "stealing" from a warehouse, if everyone has free access to it.  What is more, one will not steal "another's property," if all men have limitless supplies of the same.  It must be admitted that Socialism has some very distinct advantages.

Or is it possible that the ideal of Socialism is a mare's nest, or perhaps even a Trojan horse? -- That is to say, perhaps its boasting is empty, or perhaps the good-looking gift is full of that which, in the end, will destroy us.
When supply is endless and blank in form, what happens to the soul of man?  Is it possible that the result of socialism is the destruction of the essence of mankind?  Is the effect of socialism to destroy what it means to be a person?
Perhaps Socialism necessarily makes one less than a person, because he is not different.

Technorati Tags: Capitalism, Socialism, Property, Economics

Robin Hood (does not rhyme with Robbin' Food)

A look
at the book
by one entity
who saw the movie

The book Robin Hood does a much better job explaining why exactly Robin Hood was an outlaw in the first place. He shot a kings' deer by reason of not noting that it was a king's deer. When assailed and finally fired upon by those of his company, he fired back, killing one of them. Thus it was that Robin became an outlaw.

One thing is not so well explained in the opening of this book. How exactly is it that this band of Merry Men gets along so well? They all have outfits of green, and provisions not lacking -- they get them from somewhere. Of course, they have no need of houses, for they live in Sherwood Forest, which is owned by no one in particular, except if it is crown land. They eat by hunting deer, which belong to no one, unless it is the king himself. The large quantities of ale are not so easily explained, as they do not grow naturally, to my knowledge, in any part of our world.

One must remember that Robin Hood occurs in England, which is very different from America. In America, one could say he partially owned the government forest, for in America, the citizens ARE the government. But in England, government property was by no means public, as it was the personal property of the king.
When reading Robin Hood, one can easily understand the desire of Daniel Boone and our early pioneers. In this place we have called home, there is no spot of land that is not owned by someone, or by that agency we call government. There is no longer a place where the animals are "wild." They are all owned by someone, by virtue of treading upon his land. There is no spot where a landless and foodless man can go, live and eat, without becoming an outlaw. We speak of those who are homeless, and say they must roam the streets. And so they must, always on someone else's property, and always breaking the law.

No wonder Daniel Boone left for parts unknown. He went to the land which was regarded by those who lived there to be owned by itself, and all men were free to live and make a living on it. I speak, of course, of the Indians. The concept of personal property was not highly developed among the native inhabitants of this land. They had territory, but not land. They owned the fields, but not the fish and deer. There were large expanses of "no man's land," where anyone was free to hunt. This was land that allowed for poor men.

In our modern era, our ownership of property is so highly developed, that we sell not only our entire globe, but other planets as well. Property is being sold on both the Moon and Mars!
http://www.moonshop.com/
http://www.marsshop.com/

Is it possible that we have gone a bit overboard?




Thoughts from this section of Miscellany of Men,
By G.K. Chesterton

The dawn of the mediaeval civilisation found him a serf; which is a different thing from a slave. He had security; although the man belonged to the land rather than the land to the man. He could not be evicted; his rent could not be raised. In practice, it came to something like this: that if the lord rode down his cabbages he had not much chance of redress; but he had the chance of growing more cabbages. He had direct access to the means of production.

Since then the centuries in England have achieved something different; and something which, fortunately, is perfectly easy to state. There is no doubt about what we have done. We have kept the inequality, but we have destroyed the security. The man is not tied to the land, as in serfdom; nor is the land tied to the man, as in a peasantry. The rich
man has entered into an absolute ownership of farms and fields; and (in the modern industrial phrase) he has locked out the English people. They can only find an acre to dig or a house to sleep in by accepting such competitive and cruel terms as he chooses to impose.

Well, what would happen then, over the larger parts of the planet, parts inhabited by savages? Savages, of course, would hunt and fish. That retreat for the English poor was perceived; and that retreat was cut off. Game laws were made to extend over districts like the Arctic snows or the Sahara. The rich man had property over animals he had no more dreamed of than a governor of Roman Africa had dreamed of a giraffe. He owned all the birds that passed over his land: he might as well have owned all the clouds that passed over it. If a rabbit ran from Smith's land to Brown's land, it belonged to Brown, as if it were his pet dog. The logical answer to this would be simple: Any one stung on Brown's land ought to be able to prosecute Brown for keeping a dangerous wasp without a muzzle.

Thus the poor man was forced to be a tramp along the roads and to sleep in the open. That retreat was perceived; and that retreat was cut off. A landless man in England can be punished for behaving in the only way that a landless man can behave: for sleeping under a hedge in Surrey or on a seat on the Embankment. His sin is described (with a hideous sense
of fun) as that of having no visible means of subsistence. The last possibility, of course, is that upon which all human beings would fall back if they were sinking in a swamp or impaled on a spike or deserted on an island. It is that of calling out for pity to the passerby. That retreat was perceived; and that retreat was cut off. A man in England can be sent to prison for asking another man for help in the name of God.

You have done all these things, and by so doing you have forced the poor to serve the rich, and to serve them on the terms of the rich. They have still one weapon left against the extremes of insult and unfairness: that weapon is their numbers and the necessity of those numbers to the working of that vast and slavish machine. And because they still had
this last retreat (which we call the Strike), because this retreat was also perceived, there was talk of this retreat being also cut off.