How Wonderful to Own Nothing!

Is it really so awesome to have nothing?  There is probably no longer a concept bizarre enough not to arouse our anxiety that someone will try to implement it.  In the case of ownership, this is not a new concept, only until recently has not apply to cars and utility items, but above all to flats and homes.

The need for a nomadic precariat

Generally speaking the message is that without owning a flat, we are not only more flexible on the labour market, but also more free, happy and, of course, modern.  And in fact, the initial assumptions of such visions were probably related to the desire to intensify the globalization of the labour market, to facilitate labour migrations, etc.  However, as it often happens today – the practical (?) idea was quickly associated with the ideological concept, in this case with the expropriation trend.  At this point a Marxist would mention accumulation by dispossession, a liberal would criticise the deprivation of a holy right of property – and they would both shudder in disgust, albeit probably in opposite directions.  The joke, however, is that when properly given - the same idea immediately begins to be liked by some representatives of the same trends.

In fact, this expropriation is associated with the accumulation of property and is carried out in the hands of corporates and neo-elites, not state.  Of course, modern states would not mind treating housing and other goods as rewards for obedience, restricting access to them for everyone outside the system.  Contrary to appearances, in this respect neoliberal and neo-progressive positions are not so distant from each other.  However, the effect in both cases is very similar – expropriation is often accompanied by uprooting, and a man without property transform into the Man Without Qualities.

Subscription for the future

However, in the case of housing, the speculative bubble that periodically increases is a fairly obvious threat to the stability of financial markets and council or state-owned extensive construction and housing system still remains a natural protective and regulatory measure in many countries.  Meanwhile, the same system for all other ownership, replaced by subscription systems and short-term borrowing – must already raise more than a concern.  For now, it works in the virtual world - software, especially games, music sharing.  The not so unimaginable futurism brings visions of worlds in which, on the same principle, also material goods, and even ... food will be made available from the codes of 3-D printers, etc.  After all, even the Star Trek showed us the World of some neo-communism or omni-corporation, without money and with all goods granted so “miraculously” to the humanity.  Considering that in the globalist and neoliberal realities states and international organisations remain only the far-reaching executive organs of capital – previous dispute whether it is better to accumulate the ownership and means of production in the hands of state or private monopolies loses its importance altogether.

Interestingly, a world without widespread private property would also actually be a world without tradition, or maybe rather with a tradition that is invented and generated over and over again, adjusted to the needs of the current stage of modernity.  The lack of material culture, inextricably linked to ownership, also questions the very meaning and possibility of the existence of culture in general, and this would result in the end of the civilization as we know it.  And this will be postmodernity of all the dreams and fears of both Neo-Communists and Neoliberals.  Postmodernity in which property actually seems to have disappeared – ultimately remaining in the hands of so few.