I have been toying with this topic for quite some time…
what follows is nothing more then working out some idea’s…
Property…an idee fixe for many, many people…
Locke for example, ties property with freedom…
this tying of property with political ideas is common…
Locke suggests that property as well as government came about
from a common consent from early man…but it is far more likely
that the concept of property and government came about a different way…
early humans more likely grabbed or stole or confiscated the prime
land from other, weaker humans… the land with tree’s and water and was
defensible… the weaker humans got the land without tree’s and water and
was less defensible…in order to protect their ill gotten gains, the stronger
humans created a defense system, which we now call government…
read history and one see’s that the government, every government… everywhere
has gone out of its way to protect the wealthy and powerful properties…
as it is true today…Locke tries to pretend that property was a function
of making free choices, but the reality is, property is theft and always has been…
with the government aiding and abetting this theft of property by the
wealthy and powerful…but leaving aside this theft… is our notion
of property viable going into the future? I don’t think so and here is why…
our idea of every man having a castle is more viable when there aren’t that many
people… when the population isn’t that great, we can have every man having a
castle, but now, now when there are billions of people inhabiting the earth
and the number of people rising toward billions more… we simply cannot
afford this concept of private property…we don’t have the land, the resources,
the energy to maintain private property as we have known it…
private property is simply a luxury we cannot afford any more…
the future is and must be, condo’s and the like…
private land and structures like private property and houses on
that land is not a choice we can make anymore…
let us take freedom and land that Locke tied together…
freedom is not unlimited, we have conditional freedom,
we cannot shout fire in a theater and we have other constraints
on freedom that makes our freedom, conditional…changeable…flexible…
to say we are free to buy land and the houses on that land is to note
that freedom is limited and thus the freedom to buy land and houses is
limited… now we just have to understand the limits on buying property…
here on the San Francisco Peninsula, where I live, the price of
housing is outrageous because of the limit on the amount of land
we can build on and the desire of people to live here…
in my city, the average price of a house is 1.2 million and that
is often a tear down house…the very cost of property limits
people ability to purchase property… limits once again…
we must reevaluate property in terms of limits and
in terms of going forward into the future…
because if only the wealthy can afford property, then
that very fact, the limit of property, that damages society
in a profound way…haves have and have not’s have not…
and this changes the basic structure of our democratic,
majority driven society… our society basic idea is of equality
and if property is not equal, not a question of freedom, then
we must reevaluate our notion of society…
Kropotkin