Ownership Society

[Ivo Skoric]

Actually, sometimes I think that they keep Milosevic in The Hague as
an advisor. Term "ownership society" should be very familiar to those
of us who grew up in former Yugoslavia. There, we had "drustveno
vlasnistvo" (social ownership). This differed from the more classic
Russian model of socialist state, not much different from state
capitalism, where everything is owned and run by the state. In
contrast, Yugoslav citizens, not the state of Yugoslavia, were owners
of *everything* that existed in their state. They did not even have
Communist Party, but rather the League of Communists to guide them
through better understanding of their incredible ownership of
society. Kind of what lawyers caste does for the US citizens. The
elite few among them sat on top of all corporations as executives,
and in the Central Committees that served as coordinating commissions
between them. Ordinary citizen didn't see an "O" of any real tangible
ownership. Sounds familiar? The US system, however, is far more
quantifiable and sophisticated in its schemes of funds and
derivatives. But the bottom line is the same: illusion of ownership
is here for the plebs, while in reality everything is owned by 2% of
the population. Bush based his term on the extraordinary high numbers
of home ownership, even among immigrants. But most of the home owners
are in fact just mortgagees. They can loose their house to the bank
if they loose their jobs and fail to make payments. And they have
less and less control over the job security. Only 10% of workforce is
Unionized. If they all fail to pay their mortgages, US banks are
going to have some problems given that about a 1/3 of their assets is
invested in home ownership.
ivo

On 8 Mar 2005 at 11:25, Miroslav Visic wrote:

A new, enhanced, "gentler, kinder", and greatly improved version of
fascism is coming to you...


/Published on Monday, March 7, 2005 by Alternet
<http://www.alternet.org/story/21408/> /
*Who Owns What?
George Bush's "Ownership Society" Leaves Out the Things We Actually
Own -- Our Bodies, Our Privacy, Our Dignity, Our Bedrooms. * *by
David
Morris*


In his second Inaugural Address, President George W. Bush declared
once again his desire to "build an ownership society."

"By making every citizen an agent of his or her own destiny," he
explained, "we will give our fellow Americans greater freedom from
want and fear, and make our society more prosperous and just and
equal."

Millions of words have been written about how the president intends
to
achieve his goals. I'll refrain from adding to that output. For I'm
still bewildered by Bush's bizarre definition of "ownership."

President Bush certainly does not believe one should be able to "own"
one's body, certainly the most essential of all forms of ownership.
He's sent federal agents into California to arrest a woman trying to
reduce chronic pain by using a plant (marijuana) grown in her own
backyard, an act the good citizens of California had declared legal
by
direct vote.

President Bush believes people can -- and perhaps should -- lose
their
jobs because of what they do in the privacy of their bedrooms. He has
moved aggressively to overturn state laws allowing the aged to die
with dignity under their own control.

Ownership of personal information? President Bush opposes policies
that require companies to gain permission before they use my personal
information for private gain.

Ownership of public information? The Bush administration has
restricted access to public information -- information the public has
paid to gather -- to an unprecedented degree. In his first two years
in office, for example, he classified more than 4 times the number of
documents as Bill Clinton did in his first two years.

Bush does seek to increase home ownership. Every president since
Franklin Roosevelt has sought to do so. None has done so little to
make that happen as George W. Bush.

The debate about Social Security illustrates the kind of ownership
Bush views as central to his vision of the ownership society. His
proposed Social Security reform, the centerpiece of his second term
in
office, will enable Americans to own shares in huge mutual funds that
hold a portfolio of shares in many corporations.

This is a trivial form of ownership. It's more like having a piece of
the action than having any of the rights or responsibilities that we
normally associate with genuine ownership.

There are, of course, many forms of business ownership. Some, like
local ownership, cooperative ownership, worker ownership, or
municipal
ownership, allow individuals to participate directly in
decision-making. These are structures where the loci of authority and
responsibility merge. Bush's policies, on the other hand, vigorously
support another less sanguine form of ownership -- huge,
absentee-owned, business structures where those who make the
decisions
are very distant from those who feel the impact of those decisions.

In the end, President Bush's ownership society turns the word
"ownership" on its head.

He firmly believes that we don't own those things that most of us
would indisputably believe we do own -- our bodies, our privacy, our
dignity, our bedrooms. And to add insult to injury, he just as firmly
believes that we can own those things that most of us would argue are
not ours to own -- air, words, folklore.

Over one of the entrances to the massive federal Department of
Commerce building in Washington is an apt and instructive quote from
Abraham Lincoln. "Patents fuel the fire of genius." The patent and
copyright systems were begun so that one could monetarily benefit
from
a successful invention or work. But today copyright has been extended
far beyond the life of the original genius, and even, in many cases,
the life of his or her heirs. This is a destructive, indeed
dangerous,
form of ownership that cannot be justified on the basis of its
encouraging innovation.

In his marvelous recent book, Brand Name Bullies, David Bollier, a
fellow at the Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern
California, offers abundant examples of the weird nature of the kinds
of ownership George Bush vigorously endorses.

One of the most instructive occurred a few years ago. The American
Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) sent out letters
to 288 camps in the American Camping Association, demanding that
Brownies and Girl Scouts stop singing copyrighted songs like "Blowin'
in the Wind" or "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" unless the camping groups
ponied up thousands of dollars in licensing fees.

Bollier, and Peter Barnes and Jonathan Rowe and Larry Lessig and many
others, propose that when George W. Bush talks about the ownership of
property, we engage the discussion by talking about the commons, that
is, property owned in common for all to use sustainably.

Bollier asks, "Who owns the internet? Who owns online knowledge? Who
owns words, letters, and smells? Who owns the fictional characters of
mass culture? Rather than granting 'fair use' exceptions to the
default norm of property ownership (on a parsimonious, case-by-case
basis!), the commons reverses the terms of debate. It asserts that
many cultural and creative intangibles presumptively belong to all of
us, and that a strong case must be made before exclusive rights to
privatize them are granted."

Under George W. Bush's ownership society, a person wracked with
debilitating pain does not "own" the right to go into her backyard,
pick a plant and eat it to alleviate that pain. But a non-person -- a
corporation -- like McDonalds has the right to "own" phrases like
"Play and fun for everyone" and, "Hey, it could happen."

There is a word that describes this kind of thinking and the person
who engages in it. Unbalanced.

/David Morris is co-founder and vice president of the Institute for
Local Self Reliance in Minneapolis, Minn. and director of its New
Rules project. /

© 2005 Independent Media Institute



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Nemo me impune lacessit.