permaculture

[John Schinnerer <eco_living@yahoo.com>]

Aloha,

"Ownership" can have consequences that look like "stewardship" or
consequences that look like "exploitation" and so on.  "Copyright" and
"Property" and so on are stories we tell ourselves about our relatings
with each other and each other's creations.

The *lived implementation* of "ownership" ("copyright," "property,"
whatever) by we human beings determines the consequences.  The mere
existence (or not) of the concept "ownership" is functionally
irrelevant.  We do what we do, whatever we call it.  

Some will live "ownership" as "stewardship" and others will live it as
"exploitation" (and I wouln't be at all surprised if they each accuse
the other of "abusing" the concept of "ownership").

As a practical example, the pre-European-contact 'locals' of north
America and the European 'newbies' had very different lived
implementations of "ownership" and "stewardship"...which they
discovered to their mutual dismay after cutting deals in which they
each assumed (at best) that the other party lived the same
implementations of those concepts.  For some details on this in an
ecological context see "Changes in the Land - Indians, Colonists and
the Ecology of New England" by William Cronon (ISBN 0-8090-0158-6).

So I suggest looking at consequences of actions rather than trying to
eliminate (or preserve) abstractions such as "ownership" - that is,
'talk' that we all 'walk' somewhat differently.


=====
John Schinnerer, MA
--------------------
- Eco-Living -
Cultural & Ecological Designing
Food - Shelter - Community
john@eco-living.net
http://eco-living.net

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Tax Center - online filing with TurboTax
http://taxes.yahoo.com/