Property vs. Identity: The Ultimate Showdown

“Ownership”, in the way we think about it today, is a very human concept. When I think about ownership the first thing that comes to mind is property and possessions, but it can also extend to non-tangible things to some extent. Plato argued that “collective ownership was necessary to promote common pursuit of the common interest, and to avoid the social divisiveness that would occur…” (Plato) in favor of the idea that there should not be a single owner to anyone thing. He’s right to an extent, that there are many conflicts over ownership. We see it all the time, especially in legal battles. Fighting over who gets what in the case of a divorce, copyright infringements, et cetera. However, I don’t think that eliminating sole ownership of things would completely eliminate these kinds of conflicts. If people share ownership of a thing, you would run into problems of who can use that thing, and in what ways. For example, say a neighborhood is considered to be communal. There is no sole owner of any of the houses, everyone in the neighborhood is equally entitled to any of the homes. No one’s fighting over who gets what house, sure, but then you get fights over specific things inside of homes. Someone eats someone else’s groceries. Someone sleeping in the bed someone else wanted. Someone playing someone else’s game, reading someone else’s book. Even if all of these things were considered communal, I doubt that would eliminate the feelings of envy or upset that would come from someone else being in the way of something you want.

Aside from the fact that I don’t think it would solve the issue of fighting over property, I also think it would cause a new problem. In a lot of ways, our property is inherently tied to our identity and sense of self. Not necessarily in the sense of our homes and cars, unless those are things you are truly passionate about, but smaller belongings that often make up our interests and ideals. Our clothes represent the way we choose to present ourselves and our style. Other belongings are directly tied to hobbies and favorite pastimes. If we are not allowed to have our own belongings, do we lose the parts of our identities that come with them? This also extends to those who create the things we own. If there is no ownership then creators have no rights to their own creations. Artists do not own their art. Your favorite movie and TV directors have no claims to their work. In a world of no ownership, I think there would be significantly less artistic expression. Imagine spending hours, days, or even months working on something, perfecting it. Then, right at the end, someone who has put absolutely no work or even thought into it comes along and just takes it. In a world with no ownership, they would be perfectly okay to do so, but you would likely still be upset that something you put tons of work into was no longer yours. Because of that, you’d be less likely to continue creating things, as you’d know that in the end, they wouldn’t even be yours. Over time, this would just lead to less art in the world overall, which seems like a pretty sad world to live in.

Ultimately, I think not having ownership of anything would just make life a whole lot more boring, and way more complicated than it needs to be. Communal property already exists to some extent, in that things are often shared among people that live together. Extending it any further than that should require the consent of the people involved, and not just be forced upon everyone. If avoiding divisiveness is the goal, that is how I believe it should be achieved.

“Dorothea Puente Boarding House” by www78 is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.