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Owning something is what any red-blooded capitalist strives for. In America, arguably the capitalist capital of the world, some people judge what kind of person you are by what you own. How successful you are in your job is often determined by how much expensive stuff you own. But is all of this right? Does ownership truly exist? Can you really own something? Ownership is one of those things in philosophy that is a divider among groups. Capitalists and Communists clash over this topic constantly, mainly because Communists say capitalism, which is driven by ownership, is wrong. So, is ownership right? Obviously, there is no clear answer. If there was, this would not be a philosophical question. But we shall try to answer the question the best we can. Ownership is mainly based on others agreeing that one owns something. Owning something essentially breaks down to the idea that an object (or idea, thanks to copyrights and intellectual property) belongs to one person or organization, giving that person or organization exclusive rights to that object. Some people say that no one should have exclusive rights to anything. Those people often say that ownership is just some crazy idea that capitalists came up with. They often say that ownership is what drives greed (which is true) and that greed is one of the roots of all evil. Just think about it. People against ownership also point to the apparent absurd idea that this is. Think about it, you could own a rock. A stupid rock! Hell, you can own dirt! DIRT! What the hell is dirt? Specks of particles. So you can have exclusive rights to particles? Just think about how stupid that sounds. Really, it could come to the point where someone owns air! There is nothing to stop that from happening. So, if you think owning air is stupid, you should just work backwards and come to think ownership is pretty stupid. Now some would say that something you manufacture is yours and that you can't own anything that was already here in the universe. But if you think about it you should realize that everything comes from the universe. Everything synthetic was manufactured from something taken from the universe. You can not create matter out of nothing. Everything in the universe is either matter or energy. Period. This is a fact of physics. So everything was already here, and so it comes from the universe. So either you say you can own something from the universe or you can't. I mean, you can't just say that at some point, once someone has messed with something enough it becomes theirs. Judging something like that is highly subjective and open to abuse. But let's say that you disagree with that. Then, lets analyze the idea of how you come to own something. First, you can make something. This has the least amount of dispute among people. Putting your time into something makes most people believe that it is yours. Next, bartering. Trading one thing for another thing is also not disputed if you believe in some sort of ownership. What does cause argument is money. The idea of money is often used as the weak link in the idea of ownership. But the discussion of money is for another rant. :) What does all of this boil down to? Well, everything in the universe was here since the beginning of time since you can not make matter or energy out of nothing. So that means that everything has been in the universe before man was ever created. Thus, initial ownership came from someone saying, "that's mine!" It then just perpetuated itself from there. Society has just decided to continue it. Obviously we can not just throw out the idea of ownership out the door now. It is too embedded into society. That is why Communists want to destroy society as it is now and start anew. It is your call whether or not you agree with ownership. And if you don't, it is then your call on how you wish to deal with it. After initially writing this rant my friend Vivian and I were discussing this subject and she was trying to figure out a way to justify ownership. I could not think of anything on the spot. But I kept at it and I came up with a very strong argument to support ownership of land and space. What makes this argument really strong, is that it stems from instinct and nature. The argument is the marking of territory by mammals. Many intelligent mammals mark their territory. Wolves, tigers, primates; they all mark a personal space either for themselves or their group that they live within. This is instinctive. It is not taught to them. So nature seems to dictate ownership of an area. Now obviously this does not apply to migrating or roaming animals like dolphins or many other mammals who live in water. But still, I am hard-pressed as of this moment to think of an intelligent mammal that does not claim ownership to a certain area of land. There is something that has been occuring over the last few years that have brought up the issue of ownership in this world. It has to do with genetics. The biochemical industry has started applying, and receiving, patents on DNA. Yes, that's right, DNA. Some companies have begun to compete with the Human Genome Project. That has led to the companies patenting the information that they have discovered about human DNA and the function of certain sections of it so as to protect their investment in the research. This allows them to sell their information to phamaceutical companies to develop new drugs. Now do you think it is okay to own the right to part of DNA, the blueprint of life? A company actually owns the right to information of your genes. This all also extends to other living things, such as bacteria. And it does not stop at DNA. Companies are now patenting enzymes that help speed up chemical reactions within cells. For instance, a company took an enzyme from bacteria found at "Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park to help speed up a chemical reaction that took place at very high temperatures. Now there are arguments over who owns the rights to the enzyme. Does Yellowstone since it was taken from the park? Do the discoverers of the enzyme get the rights? A similar problem has occurred when companies use DNA from a person to create a drug. That person sometimes wants a cut of the royalties from the drug since it was created from their DNA. Probably the farthest any of this has gone, though, is the patenting of living things. Labs have actually patented mice that have genetically-altered DNA to make them born with certain diseases, or at least predisposed to certain diseases. The same goes for genetically-altered bacteria that produce chemicals, such as insulin. At what point do we draw the line and say that man can not own everything? When do we say that some things belong in the public domain? Does nature own anything, and thus allows everyone access to it? These are difficult questions that must be answered by each and every one of us. This is not some theoretical idea that philosophers debate. This is happening now, and could affect you. Just think, some day they might develop a drug to cure a disease that you or a loved-one have, but you can't get to it because it costs too much since the drug companies want to recoup their losses from the cost of the patented DNA info they used to develop the drug. Something to think about... |