The
birth and death of private property
by Kostas Lampos, PhD
There are toxic,
violated words, taboo concepts, castrated languages that bind the mind and
hypnotize our consciences, with the aim of subduing us people, who are the
subjects of history, turning us into exploited objects for the rapists of
history, the history that is written by the rulers -supposedly by order of god-
on their behalf.
Words, concepts
and languages that integrate us into prefabricated patterns of thinking, myths,
ideologies and systems that destroy the imagination, curiosity, questioning and
research on the relationship of “I” to “We”, of society with its members, and
of humanity with the Biosphere and the Universe.
Thought shapes
and systems of clichés aiming to destroy our thought, our self-confidence, our
self-respect and our dignity, to make us fatalists, slaves of alleged gods, so
that we never realize that in this way what we really do is become the slaves
of certain fellow men who have betrayed their humanism, humanity itself and the
people and the society that spawned them, nursed and took care of them.
Such concepts as;
‘Laws are righteous’, ‘We owe obedience to
the laws’, ‘Private property is sacred’,
‘Private property is a natural right’, ‘Private property is a source of
security and freedom’, ‘We are all equal before god and the laws’, ‘God is our
creator’, ‘God is righteous’, ‘God is great’, ‘The Representative democracy is
people’s power’, ‘The people are sovereign’, ‘Believe and not doubt’, and
many others, which abusively, and because of ignorance, violence, deception and
‘revealed truth’, have been recorded in our consciousness as ‘axiomatic truths’
and ‘moral values’ that regulate our lives.
Such ‘Axiomatic
truths’ and ‘Moral values’ that deny science, the sanctity of life, social
equity, liberty and happiness, inevitably become the subject of controversy,
which is subsequently defined as ‘Sin’, as ‘deviation from normality’, as
delinquency and ‘consecration crimes’, leading to the stigma of ‘enemy of the
people and order’, social isolation, jail, and confinement in ‘white cells’ in
some hellhole; Makronissos, Guantanamo, or the Gulags for the politically
active and the alleged posthumous hell for the believers who dare doubt.
And when doubt
and questioning manifest as social discontent and unrest then the ‘logic of the
weapons’, of power and destruction is employed, but always with the ultimate result,
sooner or later, of the prevail of the logic of history and the willingness of
society to put an end to any tyranny and take the next step in the culture of
direct democratic social self-management, the economy of common goods and of
social equality.
There is of
course the alternative, offered by the religious and authoritarian
‘priesthood’, such as the non-contestation of such predicates and the
allegiance to obscurantist social traitors-rulers and the traders of religious
mythology, wars, drugs, hallucinations and various forms of escapism, that even
today leads many in ideological and political hooliganism, and / or in the
bigotry, fundamentalism, in jihad etc. up to the capitalist barbarity of our
times.
The essay 'The
birth and death of private property' attempts to challenge taboos, and
ideological ‘holy cows’ of the rulers, to demystify the 'holy grail' of
capitalism, which is private property, and bring on the focus of public debate
the problem of socioeconomic inequality, that condemns humanity into a path to
self-destruction by capitalist decadence and barbarism.
This study dares to confront the lack of
studies on the subject and to cover the non-accidental gap in the relevant
literature. It proves in a convincing and sufficiently documented way that all
authoritarian, undemocratic and exploitative socioeconomic systems and
particularly the inhumane and destructive capitalism of our times, are built on
the supposedly 'sacred' institution of private property, which could be
characterized as the unacknowledged child of ignorance, obscurantism, violence
and power, which generates economic, social, regional and national differences
and conflicts that crush individuals, families, cities and nations, economies,
societies and cultures.
Finally, this analysis confirms the logic
of the centuries and peoples and the truth of the social struggles, that
capitalism, like every previous exploitative socioeconomic system and private
property as its basis, do not constitute the fate of humanity, becouse ‘Everything flows and nothing stays unchanged’ and ‘Man is the measure of all things’.
Remarks - Conclusions
1.
Humankind lived in conditions of common ownership for millions
of years without private property, without inequalities and oppressive power, with institutions of mild development, equality, solidarity and fairness, and that is why it survived.
2.
In
the conditions of an old and decaying capitalism, private property (small and
large private property on land and other means of production) has virtually died
because it is mortgaged to the usurious banking system and by being exposed to
the toxic political casino-type capitalism is necessarily and forcibly
expropriated. Because of this it is disconnected from people and as anonymous,
invisible or shadow property moves rapidly from people with names and addresses
to anonymous institutions, of-sore companies and labyrinthine financial groups
and thus ultimately works against the interests of individuals, society and
humanity as a whole.
3.
The
private ownership on the means of production and energy sources as a product of
force and power, produces and reproduces violence and power to perpetuate its’
existence, resulting in a decline to capitalist barbarism and human tragedy. Without the abolition of private property and the replacement of fossil
fuels and centralized energy system by a new form of cheap, clean,
inexhaustible and decentralized form of energy, such as hydrogen power,
humanity is doomed to suffer a new capitalistic Middle Ages.
4.
The
real-authoritarian personal property which produces wealth with foreign labor
force and dominates humanity has nothing in common with the small and fictional
individual property of the subordinates which like an invisible bridle drags
them to the capitalist Coliseum and makes them easy opponents and subjects of
exploitation for the large private property of the rulers.
5.
Private
property, especially private property over the means of production, is a
relatively recent institution imposed and maintained by force and falsehood, the
wasteful and parasitic function of which is hostile to Nature and
systematically undermines the equal and balanced development of the economy,
society, the individual and the human civilization.
6.
Private property is the result and cause of
violence, immorality, competition and crime that causes violent conflicts to
the death between individuals, social classes, societies and nations. It
creates symptoms of disastrous social morbidity, expressed as capitalist
globalization and gradually leads to the death of societies, ignoring the fact
that, as a social canker, it not only destroys society but also its’ own self
in the process.
7.
The
modern forces of Labour, Science and Culture must realize the path we are on
and try, as long as it is still not too late, to abolish private property and
capitalism, in order for humankind to be able to survive and prosper.
8.
A
better world without private property, without economic and social
inequalities, without violence, lies, masters and slaves, without wars is now
in the 21st century, feasible, and born daily within the old in the form of new
social movements that deny the degradation that capitalism brings, and offer
new solutions for a society of equals and a mild, non-capitalistic and socially
controlled economy of common goods, leisure and human happiness.
Let us open our eyes to admire this new
world and let’s stretch out our hands to finally create it. Us, the forces of
Labour, Science and Culture, as the true and only subject of history, can close
the cycle of a history buried by social inequality, as this is the last stage
of human prehistory and let’s build the foundations for the real human culture
of classless societies so that the true history of humankind can begin. The
long march of humanity toward social equality and universal humanist culture
continues and the 'utopia' of Direct Democracy and Classless society gradually
becomes reality, as the only alternative to salvation.
*
Contents:
Preface
Note from the author.
Chapter A.: The private property as a
concept and power: For the meaning,
origin and nature of private property. Private property and individual.
Individual ownership and family. Private property and the economy. Private
property and society. Private property, politics and political rights. Private
property and culture. Private property and the environment. Private property
and ethics. Private property and democracy. Private ownership, globalization
and terrorism. Private property and freedom.
Chapter B.: The historic appearance and the
route of private property.
Prehistoric, Pre-proprietary societies. Pre-capitalist forms of land ownership.
The birth of private property and the trap of Solon. The transformations of
private property. Capitalist private property. Capitalist private property as
ideology. Capitalist private property in practice. Private property as the
cause of civil and major geopolitical conflicts. Private property as a tool of
the Fascist New World Order.
Chapter C.: Periodization of the history of
property: The era of landlessness. The era of common
ownership. The era of private property. The constant assertion of common
ownership. The Commune of Thessaloniki (1342-1350). The Commune of Andros (1822). The Paris Commune (1871).
Chapter D: Decline and Death of private
property and other monsters.
Aftermath.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
________________
KOUKKIDA
Publishing house. Main distributor: Themistokleous 37, 106 77 Athens. Tel.: 210
3802644, E-mail: koukkida.edit@yahoo.gr
Additional contact: dnlampos@hotmail.com
