Ownership

You don't own the Sun, the land, the ocean, or the trees. We collectively own these together with all the other inhabitants of the world. Whatever physical resources you might make use of have come about by forces beyond your doing and beyond your control.

You don't own ideas either. Any idea, concept or thought can be freely used by anybody who comes in contact with it. It can be duplicated infinitely without a loss to anybody else who might have thought it.

What you do own is your personal efforts and the activities you take part in.

In HoloWorld there is no point in fencing off a stretch of land far from where you live, putting up signs warning everybody else to stay out, and then just leaving it there. As a matter of fact that would violate the basic rules concerning resources.

If you put great care into arranging the local environment you live in, those efforts are yours. If you build a house and cultivate a garden, those are your efforts and can not be taken away by anybody attempting to lay personal claim to the land you did it on. However, you would have no right to impose your exclusive activities on land that was already used for something else, or that is a common resource used by many.

The general rule in HoloWorld is that one would act as owner of the environment one lives in and the artifacts one is using. For example, you would decorate the house you live in as you choose.

The idea of profiting from property one lends or rents to others has little validity in HoloWorld. Generally, if you don't use it and maintain it, you don't own it. The people who use and maintain something are the owners of their own efforts.

There are no property rights that can be revoked by absentee owners. That is, there are no remote lenders or landlords that can throw you out when they choose.

This might be a scary thought for those who would wish to hoard resources and profit from others' need for them. But notice that the principle works several ways. Not only is it meaningless to hoard unused resources for a rainy day, nobody else will have been allowed to do so either, so the resources won't particularly turn up missing when you might need them.

Ownership is based on effort and valuable contribution. That is, if you are doing something meaningful, you might command a bigger chunk of real estate while doing so.

This puts a pervasive emphasis on cooperation and good will. You don't just blindly move into one cubicle of a living complex in isolation from everybody else there. If there is already available living space there, the existing community of people there would be interested in what you can contribute. You would acquire the services and cooperation of your neighbors by demonstrating that your relationship will be mutually beneficial.

This is always a multi-directional equation. That is, your security in owning a certain environment or living space will depend on your relations to others who occupy the same or adjacent space. If you live and work well together, that will be enjoyable for everybody. If they don't like what you're doing, they might withdraw their part of resources you share. Or, if you've moved into a well-defined community with clear rules, and you violate them, they might expel you. So, of course, it is generally a bad idea to move in with people who don't like you or who have very different ideas than yourself on living style.

Disputes of ownership are settled by examining the amount of care, effort, creativity and use that different participants are contributing. And ownership in this context will mainly mean the right to make decisions concerning the artifact or activity in question. So, if you for years have been tending a fruit tree, watering it, pruning it, distributing or consuming the fruits, then that is obviously your effort. The person who planted it years ago might have much less say about it. However, if he asserted his right to manage the tree early on, by actively doing so, that might be a different matter.

You can't take over somebody else's activity without their consent. What you can do is either to take up an activity that nobody else is taking responsibility for, or you can enter into a joint venture with those who are doing it.

Ownership is intimately tied to responsibility. You can command activities you are responsibly taking care of. You can't own anything on paper that you aren't actively taking part in.

Ownership will often be co-operative, in that a large or small group of people will all work on something together, such as community buildings, a townhall square, sports facilities, parks, etc. Since the land isn't divided artificially into a lot of little chunks with different owners, developing in totally un-coordinated ways, you'd rather find that the resources and architecture of communities become aesthetically and functionally integrated and interconnected. The HoloWorld scheme of ownership might seem foreign or threatening to people who have found false security in keeping others away from arbitrary territories of ownership, using force or violence to protect them. But actually it ensures more practical and lasting ownership, and more peaceful interactions. Notice that there is no government or bank or landlord or judge who can revoke your property rights just because you "owe" them. That concept has little validity here. Your use of your de facto property is not arbitrarily threatened by agencies outside your immediate environment and relationships. Rather they are tied to the judgement of yourself and those who participate with you in the same activity.

There is no such thing as forced taxes on property or income in HoloWorld. Nobody has any demand on the fruits of your efforts. Community resources are more likely to be financed by voluntary contribution or by percentages taken out of the prices charged for receiving certain services or goods. How that is arranged will differ from region to region.

Since most resources are controlled by those using them, you will find that a great many activities will run by voluntary giving and contribution. People are not helping and supporting each other because they are forced to, or taxed into it, but because the resources are available to do so, and it makes sense to make the whole work better.

There is no economic advantage to not helping others, or to keep resources away from others. On the contrary, the HoloWorld economic system encourages the use of resources for the maximum benefit for the most people concerned. There is no economic advantage to keeping property away from use, or making it inaccessible. On the contrary, it is most advantageous for everybody to share the fruits of their activities with as many as possible, to assert the value of what they are doing.

In HoloWorld everything is predominantly free. Not free for the taking, but free for the giving.