Own Nothing, Be Happy

Like a Room without a Roof?

“You will own nothing and be happy.” Remember that cheerful, reassuring slogan from 2020? Since those with power cannot afford to let a crisis go to waste, economic and political leaders across the globe saw the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns as the perfect opportunity to create a new world order. And no matter what they say, this new world order is not about making up for past wrongs and inequities, saving the planet from climate change, or making an allegedly more fair and just world. It’s about us losing our rights so they can consolidate their power. 

Of course, they don’t say that. Instead, they argue things like “To achieve a better outcome, the world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions. Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed. In short, we need a ‘Great Reset’ of capitalism.”

According to the World Economic Forum, the Great Reset relies three central goals: ensuring the market produces “fairer outcomes,” guaranteeing investments are geared towards “shared goals” like “equality and sustainability,” and forcibly socializing each sector to pursue the common good. This doesn’t sound too bad… unless you know your history. Fairer economic outcomes require the boot of the state on the face of the successful and self-sufficient, which is why creating fairer economic opportunities is far more effective. These “shared goals” may sound good, but no one talks about the costs, just the photo ops. And the “common good” is the sanitized way to collectivization, which ends in repression and mass graves. The video below delves deeper into these and other problems the Great Reset will create.

In short, the elites think they know better than we do, and that is why you must own nothing. And to enact the Great Reset, those in power must dismantle the pillars of western civilization, one of which is the right to own property. This right does more than ensure you have dominion over the land in your name. It also guarantees that you have the right to your labor, what it produces (which can include your paychecks when working for someone else), and what it buys. 

And labor doesn’t have to be farm or factory work; creating an experience at a restaurant, teaching, sales, and so much more are all valid forms of labor. I would define the kind of labor that is associated with property rights as being any kind of work that creates value, which others confirm in a tradable marketplace. As such, labor’s creation of value extends to intangible things like services and ideas, not just the creation and acquisition of physical property. 

So, why is the right to property, physical and intangible, so important? It matters because individual ownership creates and protects other individual rights. This began in ancient Greece (Athens, in particular), where individuals owned the things like oil and grape presses, so they could turn raw produce into its final products. They did not have to rely on others to take their goods to market, so they received full payment. Dr. Victor Davis Hanson makes this case here:

When individuals have enough control over their labor, the products of that labor, and/or the means necessary to create value through their labor (like farmland, for example), they become a political and economic force with which to be reckoned. As a result, those with more political and economic power grant more rights to the citizenry to avoid threats to their own status like strikes and uprisings. In the case of the United States, individual rights were a cornerstone of a newly formed government because of the western tradition of rights that sprung out of earlier ideas of owning one’s labor and what that labor can buy. 

So, as the elites and their woke minions are trying to moralize you out of your fundamental right to own property, it’s worth asking them who will own everything when we all become permanent renters. If they tell you the people will own everything remind them that collective ownership is actually state ownership. And even stateless, ancient forms of common ownership can only work on small scales and comes with another set of challenges, as the Native American system of “un-ownership” proves. You can find more on this subject in my previous post linked below.

Property as "Whiteness"

When property rights vanish, the property still exists. It just happens to be owned by the state, which says it represents the collective. The problem is that once the state gains this power, it will fight to maintain it. Step one toe out of line, and you are at the mercy of the state. And since you don’t own your home, business, or anything else of significance, it will be easier for the state to get to you. Property is power, either in the hands of the state or the individual. It really is “my house, my rules.” Can we really remain free under these conditions? 

But the state isn’t the only one who can hold the deed to your home, control your business, or regulate your intellectual property. Private companies like the Big Tech monopolies have a hand in this, too. Now hedge funds are in the business of buying up blocks of houses and renting them out, which drives down the supply of family houses while driving up the price. If this continues, fewer Americans will be able to use their own homes to build wealth and pass something down to their children and grandchildren. 

To be clear, this isn’t capitalism at work. If it were, Parler and the private citizens driving up GameStop stock on Discord would have failed or succeed based on the fundamentals of the market, not the iron fist of the elites who live by an entirely different set of rules with few consequences. 

In the end, it’s not just about eradicating property ownership; it’s also about the elites and the woke mob deciding who is worthy of fundamental, innate rights, and which rights serve their interests. In the meantime, the rest of us can go eat cake… in our rented dining rooms owned by those who despise us. 

So, let’s not be fooled by seductive language. Collectivism by any other name will be the end of our freedoms and the destruction of our souls. But if the way the words sound is all that matters, I’ve got a sustainable, eco-friendly bridge to nowhere I’d like to sell you. All proceeds will go to a life-changing program that will bring an end to world hunger… hunger in my world, anyways. 

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Photo: "green for sale sign" by Diana Parkhouse is licensed under CC BY 2.0

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