eThoughts : “Ownership Society:” Refining Our Ideas

About the same time as President Bush was stumping for an “ownership society,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was in Paris urging a “new chapter” in our relationship with France. The heart of her talk seemed to be that “we have an historic opportunity to shape a global balance of power that favors freedom—and that will therefore deepen and extend the peace.” What I found interesting was her call to define power a bit differently, “…because even more important than military and economic power is the power of ideas, the power of compassion and the power of hope.”

I like it, it’s a good idea to examine our ideas—and to do so with compassion and the hope we can change what sometimes appears to be unchangeable. I did wonder when she argued that “The Arab people deserve a better future than is currently in front of them.” I’m in favor of better futures for all. How we do that is the question of course. Maybe we could endow everyone with an “ownership society.” Oops, what am I talking about—that hasn’t always worked. After all, we would need a somewhat standardized concept of what ownership entails. Certainly the idea that “it’s mine and I can do what I want” has propagated many societal ills, not to mention cultural divides.

Maybe we might consider what the idea behind ownership really is. I’ve noticed that I don’t seem to own anything I think I do. It owns me. My house, my car, my clothes, my cat, my land—all seem to be tough taskmasters. That’s a never-ending to-do list they keep managing to come up with. The trick seems to be a minimalist—watch out how much one “owns.” Or I guess one could just hire a bevy of caretakers of one kind or another if one could afford it. As E.L. Kersten’s demotivation sayings go: “You can do anything you set your mind to when you have vision, determination, and an endless supply of expendable labor.”

In any case, in our society, having stuff (read ownership) is a green badge of specialness. And if we have more than we can take care of, we either don’t pay attention (that can hurt if it’s a living being) or we hire people and give them the responsibility without the ownership. We got stuff and we “own” the people we hire. That’s a big hit of control and predictability—two things that seem to help in stress relief—if, and that’s a big if, the stuff is yours.

And, in the name of ownership, look what we can get away with. Just heard your publicly-traded company has been up to some hanky-panky—dump the stocks onto someone else that doesn’t know. After all, you own them and you can do it.

Plug in land, homes, cars, animals—in short, property of any kind, and if it’s yours, and it’s not working, you can dump it. Let the buyer beware.

Ahhh, you say—too harsh. There are laws against that kind of stuff. Yep, and they work sometimes. But I wonder how you feel if you were an Enron stock holder? Or many of the other companies that don’t go under, but take big hits, with CEOs and others cashing out before the big crash. If that’s too big for you, how about the used car purchased from a private party that was a lemon, or any products or goods that are “dumped”?

In any case, I don’t think that language is the be-all and end-all of reality, but, in the spirit of Rice’s call for the power of ideas, let’s recognize the contribution that language plays in our reality—and a fairly big one at that.

Let’s consider changing the term ownership to stewardship. Not that this will fix our ills, but it just might shift our attention, and when we shift attention we often bring a new way of looking at what is familiar. Ownership is a rather interesting term, denoting that what is owned is ours to do with what we please. While that’s not always the case, either legally, morally or ethically, it is often the practice.

What if we thought more in terms of stewardship—we are responsible. Now here’s the trick to all of this, ownership tends to let us think we’ve little obligation unless we want to assume an obligation, while stewardship implies an obligation. In other words, stewardship, unlike ownership has a larger web—a bigger connective link.

Not a bad idea. I’ve noticed the connective web in ecosystems, in biology, in the cosmos—they’ve been around a lot longer than us, maybe it’s a good model.

Let’s give ownership a rest and stewardship a try. I suspect we will get a better idea of what freedom and responsibility really are.