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Theft from Individuals

Peter Barnes: Capitalism 3.0 — Chapter 2: A Short History of Capitalism (pages 15-32)

In 1995, Congress decided it was time for Americans to shift from analog to digital television. This required a new set of broadcast frequencies, and Congress obligingly gave them — free of charge — to the same media companies to which it had previously given analog frequencies free of charge. Senator Bob Dole, the Republican leader, declared: “It makes no sense that Congress would create a giant corporate welfare program. . . . The bottom line is that the spectrum is just as much a national resource as our national forests. That means it belongs to every American equally.” But, as they had before, the media companies got their free airwaves anyway.

If an accounting could be made, private appropriations of the commons in America alone would be worth trillions of dollars. The plot is almost always the same: when a commons acquires commercial value, someone tries to grab it. In the old days, that meant politically connected individuals; nowadays, it means politically powerful corporations. What’s astonishing about these takings isn’t that they occur, but how unaware of them the average citizen is. As former Secretary of the Interior Walter Hickel said, “If you steal $10 from a man’s wallet, you’re likely to get into a fight, but if you steal billions from the commons, co-owned by him and his descendants, he may not even notice.” ... read the whole chapter

 

 

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