I've been reading the book No Trespassing: Squatting, Rent Strikes, and Land Struggles Worldwide, by Anders Corr. So far, I have only made it through the first 2 chapters, both of which have been fascinating.

The second chapter of the book details a struggle which took place in the early 90's between the residents of a village in Honduras, and the Chiquita corporation. When plantation workers (the majority of the population) went on strike demanding that their subsistence wages be raised match the skyrocketing local inflation rate, Chiquite shut down the plantation in the town of Tacamiche, along with several other plantations. The townspeople, deprived of any way to make money, began growing subsistence crops for themselves to eat.

The response from the corporation was harsh and brutal. The entire town -- all property legally owned by Chiquita -- was burned to the ground. All the homes were destroyed while those who lived in them hid in the church basement. Possessions and tools were either destoyed or confiscated. The crops the farmers had been depending on to eat -- corn, peppers, tomatoes, carrots, and melons -- were plowed over by a bulldozer. Their dogs were hunted down and killed. The entire population of the town was forced off the land upon which many had lived since birth, and into starvation.

Despite much protest from international human rights organizations, including the United Nations, Chiqita claimed they were within their rights because they "owned" the land. Now, a direct quote from the book:

When asked how Chiquita originally came to own the land upon which the town of Tacamiche used to stand, the normally smooth Rodriguez [vice president of Chiqita at the time] laughed nervously. "I don't know. We're going back now to the beginning of the century. We have 22 farms, and I just don't know how, decades ago, we came to own them." History burns beneath the simmering Honduran opposition to Chiquita's claim, and Rodriguez may have broken a sweat because he knew better than he said. Even a cursory review of Chiquita's acquisition of land in Honduras since the beginning of the century makes local opposition to the company's land claims easy to understand.

The book goes on to reveal the history of the land acquired by Chiquita. In 1911, the Honduran president was overthrown by mercenaries working Samuel Zemurray, the owner of a railroad company. The newly installed president granted Zemurray large portions of land, upon which railroads would supposedly be built, but most of it ended up unused. In 1936, the railroad company sold much of the land to United Foods for $1. United Foods, after many decades of bad publicity internationally, would change its name to Chiquita.

$1. Even in 1936 dollars, that had to be a pretty paltry sum. But it was enough money to buy a license to later destroy an entire village and drive the people who had lived their for generations away from their homes.

History repeats itself. (Ok, so in the case of this latter article, it probably won't be used to drive peasants from their homes, but instead to diminish the acreage of Colorado mountain scenery that can be visited and enjoyed by all, without having to pay vast sums of money for admission. Same difference, in the long run.)

Thus we arrive at the core issue at hand. What, exactly, are property rights, and what do we mean when we say "rights"? If it is the duty of a government, as John Locke stated, to protect the rights of life, liberty, and property, whose property are we talking about? How is ownership to be defined?

Now I'm going to inject a radical idea; an idea that seemed so inherently obvious to Native Americans that it never occurred to them that anyone else might assume differently. In truth, nothing is really owned by anybody. The land belongs to the Earth, and the people to the land. Anyone who says otherwise is either lying in an attempt to exploit someone, or is living in a fantasy world. This fantasy world is so culturally pervasive that few ever even bother to question it. Ownership of property is a fiction.

Now I'll swing back in the other direction, toward Locke. Just because something exists as a fiction does not mean that it isn't useful. To say that you "own" the house you live in, and have that claim backed up by the power of the state, generally provides a convenient and stable form of existence. Most Americans, I suspect, would believe it is beneficial, assuming they took the time to really think about it. (I somehow doubt that most people do really bother to think it through, and instead just accept the way things "are" without question, but maybe the "ignorant masses" are smarter than I give them credit for.)

So if you're fortunate, you own your house, and perhaps your car, your computer, your microwave oven, your stack of dvds, and your yacht in the harbor. All well and good. I will not argue that such property rights are worth protecting. Anything a person "owns", in the sense that they occupy, carry, use, or maintain is not worth challenging, nor do I desire to do so.

What I do challenge is the legitimacy of ownership, not only regarding Chiquita's claim over the land upon which the Hondurans lived and worked, and mining companies who use archaic laws to take formerly public Colorado land and resell it to developers, but of corporate "rights" to property in general.

Remember, all property is a fiction that exists only because it is convenient as a way to make our lives easier.

By what right do companies, an overwhelming majority of whose shares are owned by bankers and institutional investors, claim to own virtually every grocery store in town? Most of the "owners" of these corporations have never even set foot in the towns where the property they "own" exists.

If we define ownership as at least requiring some sort of direct physical link to the object (or land) that is owned, traders on Wall Street might own the buildings in which their banks operate, but little else. Your local King Soopers would be "owned" by someone who spends time in the store. If not the drones working the registers and stocking the shelves, or the customers perusing the aisles, then at least the store manager would be in charge of setting policies. The same would be true of any type of business. This is the world I would prefer to live in.

What can we do to get to that world? For a long time, my optimism allowed me to believe that all it takes is for enough of us consumers to vote with our wallets, support local businesses, and avoid shopping at Wal Mart. I still believe in using this approach, but I do not believe it is enough. Corporate interests are way too deeply entrenched at this point. Those whose assets control the current system have too much of an edge.

For a while, I considered the possibility that the much-reviled welfare system might foster some hope, by subtracting from the fake ownership of those who have more than they can possibly know what to do with, and having the government redistribute it to the segment that has trouble making rent and feeding their children. But this too has many problems, both in theory and in implementation. That has been debated ad nauseum both here and elsewhere, so I won't bother going into more detail about that right now. Suffice it to say that I don't consider it a sufficient solution.

So what is the solution? In another fantasy world of mine, it might involve a sudden and abrupt rewriting of all title deeds to every piece of land in the country (or world) to show it as "owned" by the current occupants / maintainers / people who see to the day to day operations of the site (in the case of businesses). But I know such an idea is both vague and unrealistic in the extreme.

In any case, whatever wide reaching hypothetical solution I might come up with would not only have no effect, due the fact that nobody higher up in government or the business world reads or cares about what I say, but any plan of mine would likely be ridden with flaws anyway. In order to matter, I must figure out what effect this knowledge is to have on my everyday life (if any).

Here is what I have come up with: Because property rights are ultimately a fiction, and because most major corporations have shown no compunction whatsoever when invading the natural rights of people, plants, and animals around the globe, I no longer consider it my moral duty to respect theirs. The only thing that prevents me from shoplifting at Wal Mart (or any other chain store) at this point is practical expedience; an understanding of the risk factor. That is all. If I believe my chances of getting caught are sufficiently low, or the potential consequences small enough, I will steal from the headless entity.

It is not wrong to take from an entity whose claims to "ownership" have a history tainted with corruption and exploitation. What the government says is irrelevant, except in predicting possible consequences. There is no morality here.

Do you see what I have just done? I have now adopted the mindset of a CEO. Risk factors, cost benefit analysis, and while I'm at it, I'd better go consult with my legal staff to form a contingency plan. But no matter what, there is nothing inherently moral or immoral about any action. Consequences to others are irrelevant. The law is just something to be dodged when it gets in the way, and used as a weapon when it works to my advantage. There is only profit, or lack thereof (i.e. failure). See? I think I'm finally getting the hang of it!

What happens when the day comes that every person in the world begins to think like this?

I have gotten a little off the track of property rights. So, because I am getting sick of sitting here, I'll end it up with a quote from one of my favorite movies, because I'm feeling too lazy and mentally tired to think up anything more creative. Think of how this might apply to the concept of property ownership:

There is no spoon.