Having My Way

25

HOW NOT TO BE OWNED

The man who is not permitted to own is owned.

—SANTAYANA

There would be no tigers in zoos were they to remain as ferocious as when first captured. But once owned, they soon become docile.

Human slavery is an ancient institution in all parts of the globe. Slavery would not exist, however, if captives remained as intractable as when first shanghaied by slave traders. But once owned, they become complacent.

Airlift a family from Omaha and the next day install them as citizens of Omsk. The sudden contrast would make them furious but, once owned, they would soon become as unaware of their plight as are most Russians today.

Similarly, with our fellow citizens. Reflect on the increased take of the people’s property by government since say 1913.1 Had this enormous increase been imposed all at once, the political perpetrators would have been unseated just as promptly. But let the increase be imposed gradually, as during the past sixty years, and the deterioration of private ownership is greeted indifferently, if not with approval.

All of recorded history reveals a struggle to achieve selfhood, including its corollary, ownership of property—control of one’s own. Who is to control the fruits of your labor, you or others? Wars have been fought and governments have been shaped to resolve this question. Private ownership is the very heart of the free society but its establishment and practice have been sporadic at best. Throughout the ages, the plunderers have had it by a mile, not only in primitive societies but also in the modern U.S.A. Private ownership comes out in last place.

In my view, the losing concept is right and the winning notion is and always has been wrong. In the light of all that has been written over the centuries in support of private ownership, why is it in last rather than in first place? Why has the rationale of selfhood—to each his own—failed so miserably, as if it were an incomprehensible concept? There has to be an explanation; this is my attempt to find it.

The answer, as I see it, was revealed three thousand years ago when the Ten Commandments were first recorded. The Commandment, “Thou shalt not steal,” presupposes private ownership. Why? How possibly could anything be stolen were it not first owned!

Here we have a stress on the importance of private ownership, so strong that a violation was deemed a religious offense. There was, however, a blind spot in this belief which led to its violation on the grand scale. The blind spot? Human slavery was an accepted, and even an honored institution among the very people who gave us this Commandment, who thought of it as “pure gospel.” To own slaves, openly accepted! To be owned, blindly approved!

What comes to light in this blatant contradiction? The all but hidden answer to the private ownership dilemma: Millions hold private ownership as a sacred right for themselves but fail to realize that unless this precise right is extended to everyone else, it is no right at all—a mere fiction! When each citizen proclaims ownership of his earnings and fails to grant respect, and insist upon a similar ownership on the part of everyone else, the outcome has to be all citizens against one. For the person who is not permitted to own what he has earned is in fact owned by a master!

Let us not poke too much fun at the ancient Israelites for their queer notions of right and wrong, each respecting his own property but not that of the other person. Each, to them, meant mostly I, rarely you!

How different are present-day Americans? Perhaps 999 out of every thousand, be they politicians, welfare statists, or whoever, actually believe that they have a right to the fruits of their own labor. Try to take their income dollars from them face-to-face and watch this belief assert itself!

But, as with the Israelites, there may not be more than one in a thousand today who will accord the person and the property of others the same respect he accords his own. Thus, in these loose terms, the odds are a thousand to one against private ownership as a working principle. And simply because nearly everyone defends only his own right to private ownership which, of course, leaves the institution defenseless.

Take what is obviously the opposite to private ownership, namely, human slavery as popularly understood. Ask Joe Doakes or whoever, “Do you favor or disapprove?” Most Americans would scoff at a question which so grievously affronts their sanity. The reason? They think of human slavery as only a Simon Legree-Uncle Tom relationship, a white with a lash compelling a black to do his bidding.

Now pose this question: do you approve or disapprove of the compulsion which forces the piccolo player to labor in the sputnik factory? People’s “sanity” will be less affronted. After all, it is the government, not a mean, self-seeking villain doing the compelling! But, really, what is the difference between a political collective backed by a constabulary and a man’s passion to enslave backed by a lash? There is no less compulsion in one case than in the other. Neither Uncle Tom nor the piccolo player owns his life. It is slavery in either case.

Go next to the still less obvious, and ask: do you approve or disapprove the forcible taking of everyone’s income in the nation to finance shall we say the Gateway Arch? Here “sanity” is hardly affronted at all. As tigers in a zoo, most people have adapted themselves to their spoon-fed habitat and have become docile. Yet, this is enslavement no less than that imposed by Simon Legree.

It is as simple as this: If a man has a right to his life—to “own” himself—it logically follows that he has a right to sustain his life, the sustenance of life being the fruits of one’s own labor. Thus, to the extent that one’s sustenance is taken, to that extent is life taken—to that extent is one owned instead of owning himself.

Where lies the remedy? What has to happen before individuals will concede to others precisely the same right to ownership as they seek for themselves? Observe the Golden Rule? Yes, that is the answer all right, but in the same sense that “Thou shalt not steal” is the answer.

Here is a realization we must come to: The Golden Rule and the Commandment are but labels for ideal and hoped-for relationships. In a dictocratic society they are unattainable pipe dreams. In a free society they automatically exist. These ideal relationships grow toward reality only to the extent that the free society approaches reality. This is to say that freedom and private ownership, as well as an observation of the Golden Rule, rise or fall in unison; they are inseparably linked!

Once this is understood, it becomes clear why “Thou shalt not steal” has so little practical meaning among people who permit some men to own other men. People who view human slavery, in any of its numerous forms, as an acceptable institution have no inkling of the free society. The Commandment against theft is no more than a mystical aspiration in a dictocratic situation, and cannot be otherwise.

Whenever the right to the fruits of one’s own labor is gaining acceptance and respect it will be seen that an understanding of the free society is likewise gaining. Of course, the reverse is true. When state welfarism and government control is on the rampage, as in the U.S.A. today, be it noted that there are leaders by the tens of thousands from all walks of life—business, education, religion, and so on—who wave aside the free society as a viable way of life. They are leading us down the road to serfdom and, interestingly enough, are unaware of their mischief. Their philosophy, though never in these realistic terms, is that you and I shall not be permitted to own; we are to be owned. And so are they—though they know it not.

The above is a long introduction to a brief conclusion: The coercive control of people’s lives—including the fruits of their labor—falls or rises precisely as the practice of freedom increases or wanes, which is to say, as authoritarianism relaxes or tightens its grip.

Freedom is the right of anyone to do anything, so long as it is peaceful. Government is freedom’s peace-keeping agency; its role is limited to codifying and prohibiting all unpeaceful or destructive activities.

Given this freedom arrangement, each citizen is free to produce anything he pleases, to exchange on mutually agreeable terms with whomever he pleases, to do as he chooses with what is his own and without trespass against others.

We have in this ideal situation only willing exchanges, whether of goods or services. Each citizen gains in his own judgment or he would not make the exchanges. Each owns; no one is owned. There is neither thievery nor enslavement; both are impossible. Each is behaving toward others as he would have them behave toward him. In a word, the Golden Rule is observed as freedom is practiced.

How to own rather than be owned? Learn the freedom philosophy and how to live by it!

• 1See “The New Science and The New Faith” by Dr. Donald Hatch Andrews, The Freeman, April 1961.