Timothy Wilken, MD writes: The truth is especially hard to believe if it requires that we take action — if it requires that we change. If humanity is to have a future, we must take action — we must change. If humanity is to have a future, we must believe the truth. In an earlier article I wrote:
Truth #1 — Possessions are not necessarily property.
The possession of an object does not mean that the possessor has a
moral or rational claim to ownership of the object. The political,
economic, and social structures of our present world are all based on
our concept of ‘property’ and property rights. If we define property as
those possessions that were acquired by 1) either paying a fair price
in a free market to the rightful owner, or 2) that which is produced by
the mind and hands of the owner. Using this definition, most of today’s
possessions are plunder and not property. In today’s world plunder is
common and property is rare.
Truth # 2 — The Majority of Human Wealth is a Gift
The vast majority of human wealth is a gift free for the taking, and
cannot be morally or rationally claimed as property by any individual.
The land and natural resources are wealth provided to us by God and
Nature. The sunshine, air, water, land, minerals, and the earth itself
all come to us freely. The Earth’s land and natural resources are not
products of the human mind or body. They existed long before life and
humankind even emerged on our planet. There exists no moral or rational
basis for any individual to claim them as Property.
If a claim of ownership can be made at all, it must be a claim on behalf of all Life both the living and those yet unborn.
From these truths, it follows that if we humans synergically reorganized our world, we
would all be wealthy beyond our wildest dreams. Today in 2008, if we
were to reclaim the gift of all the land and natural resources
presently held on planet Earth as individual property. And if we were
to further reclaim the gift of Progress from those few who control it
today, and then divided these two gifts equally among the 6.7+ billions of
us living on the planet, we would discover to our surprise and
amazement that every man, woman, and child is wealthy beyond their
dreams.
With synergic organization, and careful utilization of the
planet’s total wealth for the benefit of all humanity, the carrying
capacity of the Earth could be maximized to solve all our human
problems and meet our all our needs. And this is without any need to
damage the Earth, or degrade our environment.
There would never be any need for humans to earn their livings
again. Our livings have already been earned by all those humans who
lived and died to give us the great gift of progress. Then all humans
would be free to spend their time making their lives meaningful by
creating more wealth to be gifted to living and future humanity.
To better understand my proposal for a synergic future, it is important to understand what I mean by “wealth.” (09/24/08)
more…