Personal Property
The concept of personal property is absurd. And dangerous.
If you own something (anything; a bit of land, an idea, a plan, a house, a cat, a skill, a baguette, a sense of your right to own things) you protect it.
On the largest scale, this dynamic leads countries to have “enemies”, and ultimately to wars – in the name of protecting ‘their’ land and ‘their’ people. On the smallest scale, this leads to the odd punch up on allotments all over the UK.
If you own something, you control who can access it. Through the price you charge for it, or the rules you place around it, or…ya know….by just being a dick about it; you know who you are.
If others own things we want or need but we can’t get or achieve, this can drive feelings of desire and jealousy (The Heralds of Lack) which can cause theft if we don’t have the means to legitimately (within this system) obtain the thing(s) we desire.
If what was owned was not so visible or controllable or so unequally shared, maybe it would be ok. But perhaps, when you are in a position of power or abundance, it’s impossible to hide it.
But it’s not impossible to share it.
Jealousy is a natural and normal reaction to obvious imbalance and excess. It’s normal for us to want to stop people from having more than others. It is not normal to expect us to manage that particular emotion. Because jealousy is good.
Jealousy is the voice that demands fairness and equality. Jealousy expects sharing. It is entirely correct of us to want the excess that others have. Because if we did all get the excess that all others had, no one would ever have more than they need. I would get your excess. Bob would get mine. Joni would get Bob’s. On and on. Nobody would retain their excess. Everyone would have enough.
Personal property feels like one of our core human rights, and people often cite it as such because it’s an easy concept grasp, it feels obviously right, it also feels good, and many of us are able to obtain and maintain property. The idols and control mechanisms are in place to make sure it is both desirable and achievable.
For most.
But personal property – substantial personal property, not the latest Nike’s or a shelf full of books – is unachievable for a large some, and striving for a thing you can never get is an entirely defeatist proposition – leading to feelings of inadequacy and inability.
In a society where your worth is defined by the personal property you can gather and maintain (at any cost, through whatever means), some people will lie, cheat, exploit and extort, some people will follow the rules of society, which are simply legitimised abuse (I will explain this another time, and I will add a back link here when I do), and some people will always be left out.
At its furthest extremes, personal property causes inequality, evil acts, poverty and war.
Personal property is ‘this is mine, not yours’. Personal property is therefore plainly selfish. If a toddler says “mine, not yours” we correct that toddler. It’s now time to correct ourselves. To be selfish is a weakness, a flaw, a danger. It is an obvious immaturity. To own and protect your personal property, and to keep it from others, however you’ve felt about it up until now, IS selfish.
It is not a human right to be selfish. And it is not a human right to have property. And these ideas apply to national property too. It is not right that countries own land and people, and – in so doing, through international relations – have a say in the lives and behaviours of people all round the world, too.
Sharing leaves none out in the cold. Sharing brings everyone with you. Sharing gives to those who need, what they need when they need it. It makes no assumptions. It just provides. We all know how much better sharing is. We tell our kids to do it, because we believe in it.
But we live in a society that does not. We live in a society that believes competition is natural. We tell our kids to be good, then we throw them out into a world that is not good to them. No wonder some turn on us.
It’s time to act like we expect our kids to act. It’s time to have the courage of our convictions. It’s time to grow up and share what we have. All of it.
And, yes..to those of you who have a lot, you’re right - I am jealous of you. And I am proud of that.
Greed is how we create and maintain inequality. Jealousy is how we feel and express the damage greed causes. Sharing is how we balance things out.
Anyone who argues for a system that relies on the accumulation of personal property is also arguing to retain division, greed, inequality and selfishness.
Let’s change things and build a society based on sharing.