"You'll Own Nothing"

"and you'll be happy," saith the World Economic Forum

The World Economic Forum said it. “You’ll own nothing. And you’ll be happy.” However, this didn’t seem to be the case for the Ukrainian kulaks. Having had their farms, their homes, their tools, even their food and clothes, taken from them and given to the Communist Party, they look pretty grim in photographs. The Party, in fact, took even their flesh and their very lives from them as they starved to death. Hundreds of thousands were willing to die to stay on their farms, and they are still dying to defend their homes from the Soviet Union’s successor, led by a former KGB agent and grandson of Stalin’s cook. Some things never change.

The key to freedom is private property. Find a way to own your own home, even if it’s modest, so you can’t be kicked out. Go someplace cheap if you need to. You need a place to grow all your food, if the situation requires, that, again, can’t be taken from you by a landlord or the state. You need a place to produce energy, whether it’s a woodlot or a wind turbine. You need a place for your shop and tools, to keep it all in repair, and a place to house an enterprise to produce a livelihood, whether it’s a machine shop, a farm, or a professional office. 

This is why Karl Marx said, “the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.” Listen to Karl, a very influential, very awful, man. The South African commentator Paledi Mothapo says, 

Upon reflection, I have come to accept that, indeed, black people’s problems were caused by a white man. Yes, a German white man, Karl Marx, the father of communism, is the reason black people are poor today.

Without property, you are completely dependent on the beneficence of somebody, whether it’s the state, an employer, or a landlord, for food, housing, and livelihood. Relying on the kindness of strangers didn’t work out too well for Blanche Dubois, and it won’t work for you. There is no true freedom without ownership. 

So, we all agree, free marketeer or communist, private property is how you avoid bending the knee to the state. Take it from Karl. He hates it.