Theft By Property

How the World Really Works

This brief essay is for those who want to know how the world really works and to become rich or stay rich by that knowledge. There are basically four kinds of people, the rich who know, the rich who don't know, the rest who know, and the rest who don't know. We want to be the rich who know. We want to be clear eyed and to face reality. Then we can prosper, and we can know how to deal with the others.

First, a few common sense observations. There is no inherent biological difference between the rich and the rest. There are some natural variations of strength, skill, and cunning, but basically we are all just people. We are bundles of language, experience, and desire meandering our way through space and time. We all share this earth and we all require the cooperation of others to survive. We can't survive alone. And if we are rich, it is because the rest permit us to remain rich. We can only physically control what we have in our hands at any point in time. And even that could be easily taken from us. So we require a system that supports our wealth. We need to understand that system and know how to work it.

It all starts with the concepts of property and theft. Property is that which it is theft to take without permission. Most all societies agree that theft reduces all of our abilities to survive.

In the beginning we all had to work to survive, and there was no surplus to speak of. If I do the work to gather some fruit and it is taken from me, I might die or my children might die. This runs up against my primary survival instinct. That fruit is my property, and I have the right to use it.

Now expand this to working in a field. I did the work. If someone else just came and started replanting the same field or later came back and took my crops, that is not a situation that could last long.

This is the basic concept of property for use. It is my property as long as I am using it. It would be physically impossible for two people to eat the same bite of food, and once we are up to agriculture, it is not very practical to have two people planting and replanting the same piece of ground. These are physical limits that affect our basic survival.

So property for use is a deep concept in our thinking and practice. We can't really do without it. And so the idea that theft is wrong is pretty much universal. Most everyone will agree. But this is not enough for us to be truly rich. We can work harder and better than others and thus have more, but this can only go so far. It can be a basis, but the secret to wealth is something else.

Here is the secret. We need to expand the concept of property beyond what one person can physically use at one point in time to give us control over things we are not using directly or right now. Most cultures have extended property to personal possessions we keep with us. Many others extend property to our home and garden. Life is easier this way once we have accumulated a little surplus. But this is all still property for use.

Most people will accept that such property is legitimate and that taking it without permission is theft. But this is not the extension we need for true wealth. We need to extend the concept of property beyond use to things we are not ourselves personally using, but that others will nonetheless recognize that we own. The English philosopher L. T. Hobhouse called this property for power.

Now usually we want to do everything we can to blur the distinction between property for use and property for power, but since we are looking at things as they are here we need to know what we are doing. We need to be clear.

To be rich we need property that we control even though we are not personally using it. If property were limited to use this would be theft. Let's face it. But our goal is to redefine property to include property for power. Then we can become rich legally and above board and have the full protection of our "property" from "theft". And we have a powerful rhetorical tool since "Do not steal" is accepted by almost everyone.

Variations on the Basic Scam

It could be that priests were the first to discover the secret. A sacred grove or sacrifices to a god (which the priests could then use in the god's name) was a pretty good trick. The gods were entitled to the property and the priests, who served the gods, got their share.

Beyond this, perhaps priests or some strongman got control of a common village storehouse. Once they had control, they could determine their cut. Or since gods owned all the land, the representatives of the gods could control the land on their behalf. This could be easier to do if there was the need for big projects like irrigation.

This evolved perhaps into the concept of kingdoms where the king owned all the land and doled it out to other warlords. This might be more in principle than in fact since property for use and the commons may have been more the day to day reality.

Over long periods of time people were taught and many accepted the idea that gods and god-like kings controlled the land. But there was still private ownership of small holdings for use. There might be peasant uprisings if this was pushed too far so that people's survival was at stake but usually a little force and the ongoing fear of force was enough to keep the system in place.

A lot of wealth is still tied to the land. By getting control of a huge plantation people without land would be forced to work for the plantation owner. Whatever improvements that are made to the land stay with the "owner".

So this is the first variation, get people to agree, however you do it, that they cannot use some resource without your permission. If they need to use it, you can claim some of their labor for the right to use it. They are spending some of their time working for you. Notice the beauty of the phrase "working for you". You have convinced others to work for you for no other reason than they accept that you "own" a resource they need to do the work they need to do to survive.

Land is the most basic resource that this can be done with. Expanding the idea out, we have water rights, mineral rights, hunting rights in a forest, wood gathering rights. These rights are backed up by force that is "legitimate" because to violate these rights is defined to be theft, which most people agree is wrong. The scam is to convince others that this applies to the expanded view of property.

So land is great, but an even better extension of property is to money, or more correctly, credit. Most people just deal with money as a store of their past labor that they can use in the future. It's useful for exchanges with others. The opportunity comes in if you can accumulate some money to lend to others at interest. You may be able to do this if you can accumulate this money from past labor or by income from land or other property. Once there is a money economy you can get money by renting your land, that is, getting income for no labor just because you own the land. Your money can grow more quickly through compounding.

Another step forward for wealth creation was the creation of banks. First, you can make interest income from money you are holding for others. And with the advert of fractional reserve banking you can create money you are not even holding by creating an account and charging interest on the use of the account.

Once this credit system is in place, it is often found to be socially useful because it allows people to have a period of time where they can create something new without the need to work for their immediate survival. This could be done by the whole society in the form of credit unions and mutual banking. But if this happens, it removes the ability for private bankers to get rich. So this is an area the rich need to protect.

Beyond this is the whole area of gaining property in ideas through patents. This can be extended even to knowledge so that if you can get a patent on certain genetic information you can even profit from the products of evolution.

Another area of ownership is of a firm, as a corporation or some other form. A firm is a legal fiction that can be owned and in turn can own property. Since most people have no choice but to work for such firms for wages, if you can start such a firm or buy shares you can profit by what they produce without laboring yourself. Your property works for you.

One final area, if you are something of a gambler, is speculation on the prices of various things in markets. Buy low, sell high. You can even package up financial instruments and sell those to others to speculate on.

Money wealth is a wonderful thing. By having certain numbers registered in certain accounts, you can call on the labor of others. But let's be real. There is a reason it is called "unearned income". To keep this all going, we need to keep this expanded definition of property alive and well.

Making It a Fact of Nature

Now we need to consider how to deal with the four kinds of people mentioned earlier. We are the rich who know. We know how the world really works. But unless we can keep this system going, we can loose it all since we ultimately depend on the agreement of others that our wealth is in fact our own.

The rich who do not know believe that everything they have is totally legitimate, even natural or ordained by God. You can have common cause with them to protect the system, which is in their interest also. But there is little reason to disabuse them of their belief in their entitledness. They might start doubting themselves and spreading dangerous ideas around. So work with them but don't inform them.

The rest who don't know are not much of a problem as long they can continue to survive and not rebel. Bread and circuses is the age old strategy. We need to distract them and encourage them to believe that they too can become rich and that whatever small property they have would be threatened if any property is challenged. We need to constantly blur the distinction between property for use and property for power. They should not even have a way of talking about such a distinction.

As for the rest who know, we need to keep them marginalized, thought of as kooks or impractical utopians. Or we need to convince them that there is no alternative to this system. Change will not work or will be too dangerous. We need to counteract situations where they are uniting or getting their ideas spread to others. If all of this does not work, force may be needed, ideally legitimized by the government.

The long con is to make this property system seem natural, just, inevitable. We need to fund intellectuals through foundations or publishing their books or getting them jobs at universities. They need to provide the narratives and intellectual practices that will channel thinkers into lines of thought that do not endanger the property system. There should not even be a vocabulary for talking about alternatives that does not sound crazy. We also need to make sure all mass media just assumes this system and backs up the narrative of property.

Don't Kill the Goose

One final cautionary point. When we are feeling powerful, we may go too far. There can be unrest and doubt, but not to the extent that the majority of people become so concerned that they are looking for alternatives. We must not threaten their survival or basic comforts. Also, they must have enough to spend to keep the system going. How else can we continue to skim off the top?

The rich who don't know may be particularly careless in this respect. We need to protect property, cut taxes on wealth, and keep standing armies ready to defend our interests. But we also need to keep the rest alive, working, and passive.