Tag: Property

Oct 11 2015

Anti-Capitalist Meetup: Violence. Without Which Not. by UnaSpenser

I set out here to write about capitalism and how it shapes our relationships to everything. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for quite a while. I had planned to write about how competition, individualism, and the insecurity of having to “earn a living” or be denied survival, defines how we approach one another and the way in which we interact with people in our lives. I started by examining the definition of capitalism. I turned to Wikipedia first and got this:

capitalism is “an economic system in which trade, industry, and the means of production are privately owned and operated via profit and loss calculation (price signals) through the price system.”

Most of my prior thinking had been focused on the profit and loss aspect and how the only valuation system capitalism uses is money. I had originally thought that I would want to discuss the lack of any ethics or social values in the definition and how that void gets filled by the profit imperative.

However, what I found myself focusing on first was the phrase “privately owned”. I was immediately writing about the concept of ownership. In the wake of three mass shootings in the US, this week, I found myself reaching the conclusion that any society which embraces the idea of private property is, at it’s core, violent. Violence is the very foundation that society. I found myself unable to focus on anything else. I realized that any system which includes any kind of ownership claim has to be violent. So, this isn’t a strictly anti-capitalist exploration. It’s an ownership exploration.

So, can we talk about how we are a fundamentally violent culture? How that’s a feature and not a bug? Can we talk about whether we want to be that? Whether we can change that?

I’ll walk you through my thoughts which led to “ownership = violence” and my not-yet-fully-formed ideas of alternatives and a vague sense of how to get there. My hope is that we spark the beginning of a growing dialogue.  

Nov 11 2013

Anti-Capitalist Meetup: Some Thoughts on Poverty and the Social Welfare State by NY Brit Expat

When the term poor is used and when we discuss poverty, there are commonplace definitions that we always rely on. To be poor relates to a lack of money or income. But that is a tautology in many senses; a definition that already presumes that poverty relates solely to income and while commonplace is essentially misleading. A far more useful definition of poverty relates to a broader range of things within a social context. Let’s begin with some definitions of poverty in the context of the modern debate on poverty:

Let’s start with that advanced by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation:

“Relative Poverty – When we talk about poverty in the UK today we rarely mean malnutrition or the levels of squalor of previous centuries or even the hardships of the 1930s before the advent of the welfare state. It is a relative concept. ‘Poor’ people are those who are considerably worse off than the majority of the population – a level of deprivation heavily out of line with the general living standards enjoyed by the by the majority of the population in one of the most affluent countries in the world (http://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/files/jrf/poverty-definitions.pdf).”

Additional definitions address the impact of poverty on ensuring accessing fundamental notions of rights, like the European Commission definition. In its Joint Report on Social Inclusion (2004) the EC defined poverty in the following way:

“People are said to be living in poverty if their income and resources are so inadequate as to preclude them from having a standard of living considered acceptable in the society in which they live. Because of their poverty they may experience multiple disadvantage through unemployment, low income, poor housing, inadequate health care and barriers to lifelong learning, culture, sport and recreation. They are often excluded and marginalised from participating in activities (economic, social and cultural) that are the norm for other people and their access to fundamental rights may be restricted (http://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/files/jrf/poverty-definitions.pdf).”

Oct 24 2009

Dystopia 16: A Place of Her Own

The World Turned Upside Down  (One version of the Digger’s Song)

 

In 1649 to St. George’s Hill

A ragged band they called the Diggers

Came to show the people’s will.

They defied the landlord, they defied the laws,

They were the dispossessed reclaiming what was theirs.


“We come in peace,” they said, “To dig and sow,

We come to work the lands in common

And to make the waste ground grow.

This earth divided we will make whole

So it will be a common treasury for all!

 

The sin of property we do disdain,

No man has any right to buy and sell the earth for private gain.

By theft and murder they took the land,

Now everywhere the walls spring up at their command.

   

They make the laws to chain us well,

The clergy dazzle us with heaven or they damn us into hell.

We will not worship the god they serve:

The god of greed who feeds the rich while poor folk starve.

   

We work, we eat together, we need no swords;

We will not bow to the masters or pay rent to the lords.

Still we are free, tho’ we are poor,

You Diggers all stand up for glory, stand up now!

   

From the men of property the orders came:

They sent the hired men and troopers to wipe out the Diggers’ claim.

Tear down their cottages, destroy their corn,

They were dispersed, but still the Vision lingers on!

   

“You poor, take courage, you rich take care,

This earth was made a common treasury for everyone to share.

All things in common, all people one, We come in peace…”

– The order came to cut them down.