With the enclosure movement, the powerful took possession of the village commons. Villagers were displaced to Dickensian slums. The powerful have been converting the public domain into private profit centers ever since (witness the industrialization of China). Modern grabs are seen in privatization of public utilities, prisons and public schools. Posing as constitutionalists the occupiers of Lake Malheur propose appropriating public lands for private profiteering. Private exploitation of the planet is destroying the environment on which our collective survival depends and has converted us into a nation of infantile gluttons in the process. No doubt Ms. Clinton is well qualified to run a life support system for corporate America, but will we find the leadership that will help us get the capitalist monkey off our backs?

Rather than taxing the developing world for use of our intellectual property and rendering multinational investments risk free with a trans-Pacific trade pact we should endow an intellectual property-free trade zone that would hold the genome, drug patents, clean energy technology and water purification patents for free use by everyone. Only if such knowledge is broadly employed will our planet be saved.

Business enterprises provide any novelty from which they can extract a profit limited only by product liability laws. Civilized societies wouldn’t allow such self-indulgence while life remains a veil of tears for much of humanity. How are we to repurpose the economic engine? The production and distribution of all our landfill requires energy. Defer the debate over energy production and restrict increases in energy production to the rate of population growth. Competition for a share of available energy would cause prices to increase spurring conservation. Economic pressure would hopefully drive some of the junk off the market.

Our religious values and our self-interest demand that we produce less stuff and better quality of life. Let’s work with Bernie Sanders to initiate such changes.

 

John Gibson

Owatonna