Collective Ownership
There are several ways in which property can be owned.
And owning property is an extremely important part or makes up an extremely important part of our lives.
We spend a great deal of time figuring out what property it is that we want and how to become the owner of it
and then how to deal with it after we are the owners.
One of these interesting ways of owning something we call collective ownership, and the characteristic
of collective ownership is that we have a particular property and it is said of the
property that it is owned by each one of us in concert with every other one of us.
In other words, this is the kind of ownership that we run into when the government or some
and some other public agency says that it owns a property, but that actually it doesn't own it, but that we, a collective we, we all own it.
Now, one of the first experiences that I had in this area relating to collective ownership goes back to a time a number of years ago when I first went to Colorado Springs to become the editor of the daily newspaper there.
Supposed to be off limits for everybody in Colorado Springs, the reason being that as
the city manager, he had invited another group of people from another community to come in
and have free access to the park. And therefore, so that the park wouldn't be too crowded,
why he wanted everybody locally to stay out of the park so that the people he had invited
could be in the park and there would be plenty of room for them. Well, I thought this would
Well, I said to him, the city, what's that? Well, he said, you know perfectly well what
the city is. I said, no, I don't. I don't know what the city is. What is the city? Well,
he said, it's the city of Colorado Springs. I said, fine, I understand that, but just
what is it, aside from being a word? Oh, he said, this is what you mean. Well, he says,
The city is a corporation.
Oh, I said, well, I understand that.
But I said, I'm trying to find out who the owner of the park is.
Are you saying to me that the corporation that is called Colorado Springs owns the park?
He says, yes, that's exactly what I'm trying to say.
I said, fine.
Now what I have to find out from you is who owns the corporation?
He says, what do you mean, who owns the corporation?
I said, well, you know, a corporation is not a person, you know, it's a fictional body
that's been created by men, and I'd like to know who owns it.
Oh, he says, I see what you mean.
Why, he says, the taxpayers own it.
Oh, I said, marvelous.
The taxpayers own the corporation, which is Colorado Springs, and that corporation owns
the park.
He said, yes, that's exactly it.
I said, well then, if the taxpayers own it, I guess that means that I'm one of the owners of the park.
He said, of course you are.
I said, marvelous! I didn't know that. I didn't realize I had an asset there, but I'm delighted.
And I said, that being the case, I tell you what, I'll be going over to the park a little later this morning,
and I wonder if you could have somebody from your office stop by and meet me there,
and point out to me the particular part of the park that I own, because I didn't know I had this,
and I'd like to be informed as to what my assets are." Well, he sort of snorted and said,
well, now, wait a minute, you know, we don't do that. He says, you don't own any particular
part of the park. I said, well, I'm one of the owners because I'm a taxpayer. He says, well,
you are a taxpayer. Well, that was sure true. He said, you are a taxpayer and you own a part
of the park, but we can't tell you which part. And I said, well, I don't think very much of
the kind of ownership where I as the owner can't identify what it is that I own. Now, I said,
I take the owning of property as a very serious thing. I feel responsible for it. I want to protect it. I want to take care of it. And I don't want to let it hurt anybody.
As a matter of fact, if there's a piece of the park there that I own, I would like to improve it at my own cost.
I might even like to put a monument on it. I realize it would be a tall, thin monument because I'm sure I don't have a very large piece of the park.
Well, he began to get a little ruffled and out of patience with me, and he said,
Well, now wait just a minute here. You can't do that. You can't do that with any kind
of a corporation. Now, just suppose that you bought some shares of General Motors. You
couldn't walk into the showroom of, say, one of the motor cars and take a look at one
of the vehicles on the showroom floor and say, I own 10 shares of stock and therefore
I own the backseat of that automobile. Turn it over to me. You couldn't do that. Because
Because you don't own any part of the assets, you own a piece of the corporation, and that's all you own.
I said, well, now you've got a good point. I'll have to concede that, because that is the nature of corporate ownership.
If I own a piece of the corporation, you're quite right. I don't own a part of the assets of the corporation,
because I own a part of the corporation itself. But I said there may have been a slip-up in your office, Mr. City Manager,
because thus far I've been here two or three weeks and you haven't sent me the certificates
that show how many shares I have in the park so I said if that's where the breakdown is I wonder if
you could get those shares over to me because I said quite frankly I've been hearing rumors about
this group that's coming into town and as I understand it from rumors of course it's kind
of a rough-knit group and I think they're going to do some damage in the park and then I'm afraid
that you won't be declaring a dividend to the owners of the park. Instead, you'll be sending them a bill for repairs.
And I'd like to, you know, check out of this one. I don't think this is a good investment.
So if you'll please get the stock certificates over to me as soon as possible, I'm going to unload because, you know, I don't think it's a profitable investment.
Well, then he really did get angry with me and he said, now wait just a minute. If you were to try to sell shares like that, he said,
Why, that'd be like trying to sell the Brooklyn Bridge. We'd put you in jail.
I said, well now, what kind of stock are you selling?
You got some kind of a stock here that if I try to sell it, I'm going to go to jail?
I said, that sounds to me like some kind of a racket. What are you trying to do?
Well, then he really did get angry with me. He said, oh, take it up with the park department.
And he slammed the phone down. So I called the park department.
I sometimes do things like that. And I asked them the same question.
And I said, who owns the park? Well, we went around the circle the same way, and to make
a long story short, it worked out that we had a case of collective ownership, and we
couldn't figure out where the ultimate responsibility for managing the park resided. You see, the
taxpayers had to pay the bills on the park, but they couldn't decide who used it. Theoretically,
It was their park, but they couldn't use it if somebody else said they couldn't use
it.
If anything went wrong with it, they were sent a bill in the form of a tax increase
the next year.
And of course, there was never a dividend declared.
If the park made money, which would be an impossibility on the basis of the way it was
managed, they wouldn't get any part of it.
That would go someplace else.
So here you had a case where the people who owned the park had no control over what they
owned. The people who exercised the control over it really didn't have to concern themselves
with it, and some of them even lived out of town and didn't have to pay for it. And
then the people in this particular instance who were going to use the park didn't get
to manage it, and they didn't get to pay for it either. So you have a complete splitting
In collective ownership, you have a division between the parties who are responsible and
the parties who have authority. Now let me talk for just a moment about the basic philosophic
characteristics of ownership. Ownership contains the element of value. It contains the element
The element of boundary and the element of control, these three elements always appear
with the ownership of property. Now, the element of control, which is what property ownership
is all about, when you own a property, what you have is the rightful position to control
it, that is, to become the decision maker over that property. That's the idea. And
The element of decision-making contains two characteristics. The first, authority. That
means to say the ability to make a decision and to have the decision stand. It is the
ultimate decision that can be made over the property if you are the owner. The second
characteristic of control would be the characteristic of responsibility. If you are the decision
Maker, clearly you are responsible for the decisions that are made. You would also be
responsible for maintaining your property. I couldn't own a piece of property and then
send a bill for repairing it to people in my neighborhood. It's my property. I have
to keep it up, not other people. And also, if my property damages someone, it would be
the same as if I damage them if I own a car and my vehicle slams into somebody else's
Well, it's the same as if I did it with my person, only it's worse because the car is heavier and harder and it would hurt more than if I ran into them.
So it's the same as if I did. Remember that ownership is conceived of as an extension of the person over and beyond his physical being.
So if I own a vehicle, I'm responsible for what the vehicle does. Just as I would be responsible if my fist got into your face, I would be responsible if my car got into your car, or into your backyard, or something else that is yours.
So the responsibility and authority are a part of control. And control is what ownership is all about.
Now, if you're going to have collective ownership, which is what I've been illustrating and describing,
then you have a condition in which the authority is vested in one person or one group of people, but they aren't responsible.
The responsibility is vested in another person or other groups of people.
Now that creates a completely untenable position for those who are made responsible.
Possibly I could show you what I mean best by giving you this little quip. A friend of
mine came up with this once. He said to me, you know, I've been trying to devise a perfect
hell. I said, marvelous. I think everybody should spend some time on that. He said, well,
I've been working on having a perfect hell and I've got mine figured out. I said, great.
What kind of torture instruments will you have in it? He said, there won't be any torture
I said, well, it sounds like an innovation. What kind of hell are you anticipating? Well, he said, in mine, everybody there will be made responsible, but nobody will have any authority at all.
And I got to thinking about it. I thought, you know, that's maybe all you need and you'd have a perfect hell.
If I can make you responsible, but I have all the authority, what in the world can you
do? I can saddle you with anything and everything. And you see, that's what we have with collective
ownership. In collective ownership, all of us are made responsible for the decisions
that a selected few make. Now, I would like to see, and I would like to suggest as a superior
Their Type of Ownership, a condition in which the fellow that makes the decisions is responsible
for having made them. And if they pay off, good, let him get the benefit. And if they
don't pay off, well, don't send me the bill, let him have the bill. He made the decision
in the first place.
Incidentally, my judgment on the park turned out to be right because the group that came
up from this other community got into the park and they did about $5,000 worth of damages
to the shrubbery, and there was a bandstand, and they wrecked that to a degree, and it
cost about $5,000 to repair the damage, and the result was that all the taxpayers, quote
and unquote, owners, got a bill next year in the form of an increase in their taxes
to help pay for a decision that the city manager had made, and let's concede, he perhaps
had an increase too. But he was able to take by far and away the bulk of the cost and shove
it off on people that had no say in the matter at all. Well, now the argument would be, of
course, well, wait a minute, they did have a say because they got to elect the city manager.
And therefore, if they don't like what the city manager did, well, they can fire him
and through the processes of the electorate and get another city manager.
And in a degree that's true and that must be conceded.
But the fact remains that here we have a kind of ownership nonetheless where there is no
individual responsibility or authority properly based and no chance of getting out from under.
You see if I buy 10 shares of stock with General Motors and I don't like what they're doing
Banking.
I don't have to bother to try to change their management.
To heck with it!
I can turn around the following day and sell out and recover most, if not all, of what
I've put in.
As a matter of fact, I don't have to own anybody's stock at any time unless I decide
I want to.
Now, that takes a deliberate decision on my part.
So I go into the process with my eyes open, I know what I'm paying for, and the only
reason I buy it is because I think I'm going to make something with it.
And if I find I was wrong, then I sell out because I didn't make anything with it.
And that's fair, because I'm the fellow who is in authority over what I'm doing,
and I make it or lose it on my own, and I'm responsible for having done what I did.
But now when we get into collective ownership, well, I am coerced, my money is taken from
me whether I like it or not, it's expended in ways over which I have no control, and
The only possible out I have is to try to elect another guy that will do it differently.
But there isn't any way that I can get him to do it the way I want to do it.
And if I did, think of the incursions upon all of the other people that are placed in
the same situation who don't agree with me.
It's a completely untenable situation.
Now let me point out something that you may not have thought of, but it's an extremely
Significant Point The major differences today are being expressed
in this area. This is where it is. This is where the action is. The major question of
our time today is this. Who gets to own how much of what? That's the question. A lot
A lot of people suppose that the major question of our time is whether communism or capitalism
will win the day. Let me assure you that that question has been resolved a long time ago.
No question. Hands down, capitalism won the day. No question. Capitalism is an efficacious,
viable method. It works. However, what hasn't been decided is who is going to own the capital.
As a matter of fact, I think the people I have noted who are more interested in capital
than anybody else are communists. They're very interested in capital. They want mine
as well as their own. So here you have a conflict in the question of ownership and that's where
it is. Who gets to own, and read that word ownership if you like, control, what we're
The question is, who is going to own, to it, control the meaningful assets in the world?
That's the question. And that question hasn't been decided yet.
Now, of course, what we want to do is to come up with a solution that would maximize human well-being.
And let me say this. If the communists have the facts, we better become communists as fast as we can.
If they're wrong, we better figure out how to say so. We shouldn't become emotionally
involved here. We should become intellectually informed. Don't be for or against communism
because you like its sound or you don't like its sound. You have to understand what
it's for, what it's about, and how it works, just as you have to understand capitalism
and what it's for, what it's about, and how it works. And then you weigh these things
to see which, in the end, comes up with the most practical, the most suitable way of operating.
And whichever that particular way is, or those ways, we better accept that. Because now we're
dealing with reality. And that's what we have to deal with. In the end, we are confronted
with objective reality. We better know what the facts are. If the capitalists are right,
we better get to be capitalists real fast. If the communists are right, the same thing
Now, that's important. We shouldn't be operating on the basis of our prejudices, our preconceived notions, our emotional hang-ups, whatever they may be. We should get to the facts of the matter and find out which method or which combination of methods is going to come up realistically with the best possible way we can do it.
So keep in mind, the basic question of our time is the one I've just phrased, who gets to own how much of what?
Now take for just a moment and consider that question in the light of many of the trouble spots that we have in the country today.
Think about them. We have what appears to be a racial issue. You know what that really is?
That's a question over who is going to control property.
Take, for instance, how the racial issue has apparently affected our educational institutions.
What's the argument really about? Well, you've got public schools, and what are they? They
are collectivized property. We are told that each one of us is an owner of the property
in conjunction with everybody else who also owns the property. All right? Now you have
a school board. They're supposed to run the school. Who does the school board represent?
Theoretically, everybody. Okay. Factually, that's not possible because everybody has
different ideas. So, if the school board, for example, decides—and let me just make
a real pointed case out of it—let's suppose that the school board decides that we ought
to have absolutely segregated schools, whether they are all black, all white, or all yellow,
or all brown. It doesn't concern me at the moment. Let's just suppose that the school
If the school board decides that all the schools are to be segregated, then what about the
people that don't agree with that?
You can't have a school and have it owned by everybody, having everybody having equal
rights to that property, and then make a decision that violates somebody's rights.
The people who believe in integration have as much right to believe in integration as
As somebody has to believe in segregation. But when you put it all together in one piece
of property, keep in mind, the property can't behave both ways. It can only follow one ultimate
decision at a time. If you've got a segregated school, it is not integrated. If it is integrated,
it is not segregated. The problem of the racial tension and so on is largely an economic problem.
relates to who owns the stuff, not whether you're going one way or another. I know blacks
that prefer segregation. I know blacks that prefer integration. I know whites that prefer
integration. I know whites that prefer segregation. But you try to put all that in one building
and you can't do it because they're philosophically contradictory. You can't move both north
and South at the same instant, in the same way. That's not possible. So you have to make a decision.
And who makes the decision? When you've got a publicly owned property to it, a collectively
owned property, you can't be right. It's not possible. It isn't possible. Because you're
trying to please, and you must equally please, persons who have absolutely opposite views.
Well, then if the school board acts to please segregationists, they are violating the rights
of the integrationists to have their way with what they themselves have helped pay for.
If the school board operates in favor of the integrationists, then they are violating the
rights of the segregationists who have also paid to have it their way.
When you've got property that is collectively owned, you've got collective ownership,
you've got a problem.
In fact, that's one of the problems I call the problem of conflict in ownership. And that's
one of the areas I'm going to take up in relation to ownership. Because if we're going
to maximize human well-being, we're going to have to begin minimizing human conflict.
And so what we'll want to do is to move in the direction of getting away from types of
ownership which positively, by their nature, dictate conflict.
Take another look at this. Here we have a public highway. Who owns it? Well, we are
told it's another case of collective ownership. The government owns it. Well, does the government
really own it? No, the government is only acting for us. Who's us? Well, that's
everybody. Well, that means that I have as much ownership of that highway as any other
of the World, The Theory of Money and Credit, The Theory of Money and Credit, The Theory
I don't like the way you were driving.
Well, what's it to him?
He's working for me.
You know, if I have a fellow working in my house, say I have a butler or a gardener or
a maid, and I come in through the front door of the house and the maid says, I don't like
the way you came through the door.
You go on out and come in again.
You know what's going to happen to the maid.
She's going to get fired right then.
I'm going to say, Buster, this is my house.
I'm going to come into it any way I like, because I can do it, because I'm the authority
over the house. But now who's the authority over the highway? I have to pay for it. I'm
made responsible if the highway is disintegrated, my taxes go up, if accidents occur on it,
I'm included in the blame. It's all my fault, but who makes the decisions over it?
So, every time you run into this type of operation, you run into areas where you can have conflict.
And the more we can get out of conflict, the better it will be for human beings, I think.
You see, the major question now relates to this. What kind of ownership would tend to
to Maximize Human Well-Being.
Would we have a better human situation if all major properties were managed by the people
who owned them?
Or would we have a better situation if all major properties were owned by people who
didn't own them?
Is there some special characteristic that accompanies ownership that provides reasonable
Special Judgment in the Management of Properties or, conversely, is there some special judgment
that accompanies people who don't own properties that make them better managers? Which is the
better manager or who is the better manager of a property? The man who has worked to earn
it, who has saved, been careful with his money, made an investment, taken care of the property
and is engaged in making decisions over it, or is a better manager, a man who has not
saved, has not invested, has been examining it, and now he believes that because of the
fact that he doesn't own it, he is in a better position to discover what everybody
else would like in respect to the property than the man who has had the foresight and
the thrift to own it in the first place. This is the question that has to be resolved. It
It goes to this basic question of who gets to own how much of what, and that's what
we have to examine. Now this business of conflict in the ownership of property is, of course,
a major area. We human beings are good at it. We can get conflicts in more ways than
you can think of. We have had a long practice of it. I think human beings have a tendency
to be a little bit belligerent and to be very prideful and sometimes very avid, very greedy,
and certainly we are selfish, we are egocentric, we are individually oriented, and so it's
not too difficult for us to get into conflict, and that is certainly one of the things we'll
want to examine. So we'll do that at a later time. Thanks very much.