Privatization guarantees global plunder

But private property also means exclusion. The sign “Private Property—Keep Out!” puts this message bluntly. Private ownership designates who has rights of access and use and who can derive benefit from the property. Private property is seen as one of the founding pillars of modern democracies. Property-owning individuals are seen as independent sovereign beings, no longer obligated to landlords or attached to a clan, who can freely exercise their democratic rights. Of course this vision traditionally excluded the rights of women and slaves, who, until not that long ago, were considered forms of private property and denied a democratic vote. Private property is also seen as one of the foundations of modern economies. The argument goes that land and other resources are best placed in the hands of private owners who will look after them and use them productively. Of course this ignores the countless ways that this productivity rests on shared assets like the common law and the earth’s gifts. The prominence that is given to private property overshadows other forms of property that are also essential to our well-being. Public property, for example, is owned by a government or authority and managed on the behalf of citizens and residents for their benefit. And when it comes to our most basic well-being, survival depends on many things that are not formally owned—our atmosphere, for example, or our water sources, sunlight, the resources of the sea, and our shared intellectual property. These are forms of open-access property that can benefit all. But often there are no formal rules of ownership and use, and, as a result, these essential resources are all too easily degraded and abused. Today there is a push for the privatization of public property. Governments and organizations are portrayed as unwieldy, inefficient managers of public property who should step aside and let private owners take charge. Everything is up for grabs, from roads and water supplies to parklands and libraries. Private ownership is also presented as the most efficient means of managing open-access resources. Privatization is occurring via a sell-off of rights to familiar resources such as water, fisheries, forests, and minerals, as well as new “resources” such as carbon emissions. It is also occurring via the taking of resources that are supposedly “idle.” The long-standing knowledge resources of Indigenous communities are being pirated and commercialized by private companies in a new wave of colonization. The deep-sea floor is being privately mined for copper and gold, and the Arctic Circle is being mined for iron ore and other resources. This period of privatization is beginning at the very time that our global circumstances demand not just collective thinking and acting but a move away from the boundary making that separates mine from yours and you from me. Can we take back property and better care for the resources that sustain all who inhabit this planet? We think we can, but we need to reconsider the ways we relate to the things around us, and we especially need to reconsider the privileging of private property. In the Northern Territory of Australia, Aboriginal people are caring for “their” land not just for their immediate benefit as “owners” but for the good of the wider Australian population. They are creating an “us” that acknowledges the interdependence between humans in very different circumstances and between humans and the environment. Through their example we can see how we might relate to property in ways that take us beyond distinctions between yours and mine and you and me.