Property

Property is Theft - and it certainly was that for the people like my parents. Everyone was concentrating on getting more, and keeping what they got. With no thought of how this was working for everyone.

This was one result of Industrialization, or Free Enterprise - the belief that individual greed, operating in a Open Market, would produce collective wealth. Even though anyone could see this wealth was being unevenly distributed.

As a practical matter, back in the Fifties - this meant a new home in the suburbs, with a new cars in the garage. And one more thing - no one should think about what was going on - but just let it happen. This ignorance was a vital part of the system.

For our parents, this worked like magic - home prices rose and rose, and they got richer and richer. And more arrogant. This arrogance was noticed by some of their children (such as my wife and I) and we decided to stay out of the rat race.

We weren't the only ones, who tried to get out in the Sixties (that actually lasted from the late Sixties through the Seventies) there were a lot of hippies (I even did some time in a Mexican jail, for being one).

At the same time (during the Seventies) the economy was imploding. But Americans - who had been well-trained to notice nothing - didn't notice this.

They were rescued by the Computer - without their noticing this either. I switched from being an Electronic Engineer to a Tech Writer. And I watched with amazement as company after company went belly-up.

A new economy was being built out of the ruins of the old. And Google seems to be showing the way - for the tiny minority, who can understand what they are doing.

Property, in this landscape, is acquiring new meanings - that we cannot yet imagine.