property

an abstract system of ownership

What is property?
Property is theft!

when we say that “property is theft”
we're not talking about possession
on the small scale

owning the land that you live on
— that's a good thing
in fact, it's necessary
for individual liberty

no, when we say “property is theft”
we're talking about the whole system
by which the Earth is parceled off
and owned by relatively few people
and the rest of us have to pay them rent
— just to live!

it's unfair, it's unjust,
it's just another way to keep people down
it's robbery!

and what gives anybody the right to own
land they don't even live on?

we didn't make the land —
it was already here.

and you need land to survive
it's like the air or the water
and even though
the world is getting more and more crowded every day
there's still enough air and water and land
to go around

but instead we've got this system
where the land has been
subjugated to this abstract concept
of property and ownership
it's like money or stocks and bonds
property can be traded and bought and sold
by people who may have no connection
whatsoever to the land they're buying and selling
— except they want to make a profit off of it

and as a consequence — you can't even live on this Earth
without either paying rent, and investing in someone else's property
or becoming a property owner yourself
and becoming complicit
in this whole rotten system