Everything Will Be Owned By Someone, Someday

This thread was initially inspired by the gloomy documentary ”The Corporation”, which can be found on youtube in its entirety. I will not provide a link to it here, but I trust the ones that are interested will quite easily find it themselves. The thread may require some interpretting by yourself, as it may be speaking in broad terms about big matters. I'm not really good at getting my viewpoints across either, although they are hypothetical, but here it goes.

I came to ponder about the thought that someday, everything will be owned by someone. This includes but are not limited to; your pention, the fields from where your food is grown and bred, your right to free speech, the air you breathe and the water you drink, even yourself as an individual. Even today this is not far fetched from our reality, but the ownership is dispersed on quite alot of different entities. But one day, someone, maybe a single person, maybe a corporation, will own everything.

In the not too distant past, if your house caught on fire, firemen from a private fire department would come to your rescue. But, they would only hose down your house if you had a deal with them from before, otherwise they would just run past your house and it would burn to the ground. People then collectively realised it would be better if everyone was protected, thus fire protection became a common good.

With the modern capitalist system though, we are regressing as more and more of the important functions of our society are privatized.

Let’s for example take a look at the air you breathe. It’s already in its premature form where it is owned and traded by someone. Carbon emissions or emissions trading is where a central authority caps and sets a limit to how much of a certain pollutant may be emitted. For a corporation to increase its permits to release pollutants, it needs to buy permits from someone that requires less permits. In a rudimentary, but honest way of saying it, its a way for corporations to trade how clean/dirty our air is supposed to be. Wouldn’t this also mean that the most financial robust corporation is the one that is harvesting the benefits of this? Is it likely that this one day will also extend to water? If yes, why stop there?

This leads us further to the assumption that corporations are psychopaths.

This is a couple of snippets from an article about corporate psychopathy:

While the corporation has the rights and responsibilities of a legal person, its owners and shareholders are not liable for its actions.

source

The damage in human terms resulting from psychopathic behavior, individual or corporate, leaves a destructive trail behind. The individual psychopath contaminates whatever circle he moves in. Corporate psychopathy contaminates the government which is responsible for setting certain ethical limits to corporate behavior. Excessive lobbying and financial largesse influences those who make the laws and those who have the responsibility for executing the laws.

source

If the corporation is truly a psychopath, why do we exceedingly let the privatization of every important factor in our lives and every other living being continue?

Would everything be better if every square and cubic inch of land and air were owned by someone? Would this result in the corporation owning that specific piece of land and air taking good care of it and having the best intentions at heart? Or is it better that it is ’controlled’ within the commons, where you have your say?

What is wealth? Is it how much money we have in our bank accounts? Is it the quality of our cars, furniture, houses and clothing. Sure, but this is the capitalist within me talking. Isn’t clean air, clean water a form of wealth too? We live in a world of living things, but we place our value in something that’s artificial. Money. And we additionally jeopardize over a million living organisms lives with what we do. What is really the most important to you?

If more and more of the functions that serve the common good are privatized, they land in the realm of the corporations. Is this truly something to be worried about, or is it nothing but a conspiracy lunacy?

With the modern capitalist system though, we are regressing as more and more of the important functions of our society are privatized.

please tell me you are not an American.... LOL!

MANY would suggest the complete opposite of what you are saying... If anything, we are stripping modern capitalists of business pursuits, and destroying industries by including government involvement and making their professions and roles public.

But EVEN to make the assumption that 'capitalism' had a freedom from government, and was ever to find freedom from the public sector is incorrect. You name it, it's been under the choke hold of government and attempts to take private industry and convert it into the public arena... and yes, I would claim that allowing any form of government subsidy, or tax breaks... is the VERY NOTION OF PULLING FROM THE PRIVATE INTO THE PUBLIC. It makes the playing field unfair, and strengthens the ties between government(public) and capitalistic ventures(private).

reply to post by MESSAGEFROMTHESTARS

please tell me you are not an American.... LOL!

I'm not.

Regarding the rest of your reply, I'm not so sure that I qualify to respond to it as I'm not an american. But, corporations have a very strong influence on policy as politicians are influenced by a strong and well established corporate lobbyism. This isn't particular to the US, but most western countries.

The OP is more about the reflection about privatization of common goods, than anything else. It's about asking questions about what truly would be benificial for the majority, rather than benificial for the minority. It's not a comment on how things are, but rather an incitement where you, yourself, has to consider what's best for us than yourself.

The US federal government keep stealing land and property from US citizens then they will probably never stop. After all, why should they stop, they command the US Army Navy, Air force and Space Force.

There are supposed to be multiple branches of Government in the US to decentralise power on purpose. Well, someone has been busy pulling it altogether have they not? This would be the Bushes, Cheneys and Rumsfeilds of this world. When those three were in government it was a world disaster and everyone knows it.


Bush is to Hitler as Cheney is to Heydrich as Himmler and Rumsfeild IMO.

Probablyt three of thr most dangerous men in history.

reply to post by Droogie


We cannot have a reasonable discussion about "common goods" without first clearly defining what you mean by such a phrase:

Common goods are defined in economics as goods which are rivalrous and non-excludable. Thus, they constitute one of the four main types of the most common typology of goods based on the criteria:

whether the consumption of a good by one person precludes its consumption by another person (rivalrousness)

whether it is possible to exclude a person from consumption of the goods (excludability)

Rivalry:

In economics, rivalry is a characteristic of a good. A good can be placed along a continuum ranging from rivalrous (rival) to non-rival. The same characteristic is sometimes referred to as subtractable or non-subtractable. A rival (subtractable) good is a good whose consumption by one consumer prevents simultaneous consumption by other consumers. Put differently, a good is considered non-rival (non-subtractable) if, for any level of production, the cost of providing it to a marginal (additional) individual is zero.[

It appears as if you want to use a different definition of "common good" than the one just provided for you. This contradiction in terms is problematic at best.

reply to post by Droogie


There is not such thing as "owning" that is an illusion in the mind, an agreement with other humans, but in reality things just exist.

So the worse thing here is, if true, most humans will be trapped by this illusion and will need to snap out of it. Nothing to scary or bad.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


One would imagine that the context would provide the meaning, but as the phrase "common good" is ambiguous in itself, I'll try to clarify. Also, you raise an important point. But as I said, I'm rarely good at getting my viewpoint across.

...the common good describes a specific "good" that is shared and beneficial for all (or most) members of a given community. This is also how the common good is broadly defined in philosophy, ethics, and political science.
(...)
"the greatest possible good for the greatest possible number of individuals". In the best case scenario, the "greatest possible number of individuals" would mean all sentient beings.

source

Also it would be fair to include "the commons"...

Commons are resources that are owned in common[1] or shared among communities. These resources are said to be "held in common" and can include everything from natural resources and common land to software
(...)
The commons were traditionally defined as the elements of the environment - forests, atmosphere, rivers, fisheries or grazing land - that are shared, used and enjoyed by all.

source

reply to post by Droogie


If one spent more time imagining what this world might be like if people actually took the time to find the actual meaning of words instead of contextually defining them then one might imagine a world where people are much better at communication.

As I all ready pointed out, even if I had to assume what you meant by "common good", you've provided a direct contradiction to how economists define "common goods". Further, without any understanding at all of capitalism or economy in general, you've declared capitalism some sort of scheme that goes against the common good (as in ethics) instead of working in harmony with that common good.

The greatest good to the greatest amount includes all players, otherwise it is just nice sounding but empty rhetoric. Ethics is not empty rhetoric, and if one wants to be ethical regarding economy, then one would be expected to understand economy and not just throw out a bunch of feel good aphorisms that offer no practical solutions.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


As common goods can be refered to several different concepts, you have insisted on using the one used by economists. Me using a term that is defined by different concepts, but as such one that's implied by its context, does not make one bad at communication. But you're right, I know very little about economics, I've just been parroting a message that I've gathered from watching a documentary.

Ethics and rhetoric are not mutually exclusive, rather the opposite in fact.

There's not necessarily sollutions as there are alternatives, but that's depending on who's looking.

i am the one here own all, the one ruler of all in life, everything weill be owned by someone ay some time and thats my job later, when im king of england living on forever richest man on this earth after 400 years, i am gonna be runnig tv for the planet when majic destryos regular cable, every satutrday you watch hockey and theres me captain of the pihillidephia flyers, of defence, i am the truth bring if i wante dyou to be, and suck that