We hate private land owners, we hate the landlords, we hate the bankers, we hate the billionaires, we hate the warlords and warmongers. We hate the techbro chuds. We hate the corporate media. As we should. The hexbear community has solidified my conviction that all such people are downright anti-humans.
I live in Texas, and I am surrounded by people who see themselves as righteous, good people. Many of their ancestors were Germans, arriving after the middle of the 19th century, in the wake of the German Springtime of the Peoples revolutions of 1848.
I can't help but feel jealous -- of their history, heritage, etc. (Although, I suspect a lot of that history is fleeing from the dismantlement of structures supporting aristocracies.) At the risk of doxxing myself, I'm just a cracker whose ancestors were half dirt-poor farmers from Northern Sweden who immigrated to the American Midwest, got engineering degrees, enlisted in the military, and were lifelong union members and Democrats until the Evangelicals got their son (my father), and half upper middle class East Coasters.
I say all that because I don't have much of a heritage -- no interesting history. My family spent four generations toiling in this country, and the six contemporary families descended from those ancestors today have relatively little to show for their immigration and diaspora, insofar as I understand it.
But mostly I'm jealous of two things: 1) the support network of family and dozens of cousins who are all distantly related but all living in the same geographic area that several of my friends here have -- I only have my sister and her young family who live nearby to me; and 2) the land owned by these people.
Texas is a hell hole in many ways, but one of the worst ways is how little public land there is here. Just a smattering of state parks and wildlife preserves that are getting eroded by developers and petty legislators over the years. Everything else is barbed wire fenced-off apportions. Every acre accounted for, and protected by AR-15-wielding hunters, ranchers, rural suburbanites, and the county sheriff. And don't get me started on the folks with oil wells on their land.
Would I want to be those people? I would not. Knowing how settlers wound up pushing out indigenous peoples from their lands all over this continent, I would be ashamed of myself. And yet, their wealth and stability are things I yearn for, not just for myself and my family, but for all peoples in the world.
And I know, that stability at the price of exclusive "ownership" of land is a zero-sum game that inescapably forces others into lives of poverty and perpetual renting, if not downright slavery.
But there is no alternative in this ugly, greedy country. Especially not in Texas. These people will fight to the last drop of blood before they let go of their holdings and allowed a peoples' ownership of land like in Vietnam and China.
And why is this? A lot of it is racism -- ours for our "people", not for "their people". But a lot of it is just ingrained, unenlightened, childish, "mine" -- just the desire to have, which they would describe as just "human nature". And maybe also an impotent grasping onto the material world in the hopes of some form of legacy and escape from mortality.
There will never be any convincing any of these Texans that a communal sharing of the land would bring just as much if not more stability for their families and descendants as hoarding it. No matter how many of them are willing to share the fruits of their land and stability as "charity" to those who have less.
I'm not sure what I'm trying to get at here -- what is my question? I suppose maybe I'm asking, how can I square my desire for stability for my family and the idyllic fantasy of land of "our own" with my conviction that land should not belong to anyone except everyone all at once, and that the only purpose of the state should be to protect universal land ownership from those who would seek to return it to their exclusive hands?
I don't know, maybe that's the incorrect way to put that question.
At the risk of doxxing myself, I'm just a cracker whose ancestors were half dirt-poor farmers from Northern Sweden who immigrated to the American Midwest, got engineering degrees, enlisted in the military, and were lifelong union members and Democrats until the Evangelicals got their son (my father), and half upper middle class East Coasters.
Trust me, you remain an unknown needle in a crackerstack.
I suppose maybe I'm asking, how can I square my desire for stability for my family and the idyllic fantasy of land of "our own" with my conviction that land should not belong to anyone except everyone all at once, and that the only purpose of the state should be to protect universal land ownership from those who would seek to return it to their exclusive hands?
There's a difference between owning a condo or even a single-family home with some land and owning a mountain with a mine full of precious minerals or owning the source of a river and denying others use of said water unless there is profit. I think it's a question of what you desire and why you desire it. Personal property isn't inherently anti-Marxist.
Personal property
Even a deed to land (albeit a tiny fraction) that an imperial state has stolen from entire peoples?
Under this iteration of a colonial settler state, yes, all real estate property is theft.
I don't think that means that comrades shouldn't seek to own their own homes, if at all possible in this impossible economy. What is the alternative? Being a tenant under the boot of a corporate landlord who will keep raising rents on you until you and your family are homeless, and then other landlords will refuse to rent a home to you because you have proven yourself unreliable as a supply of passive income? None of that makes you a good Communist.
It's undeniably not the most intellectually or theoretically advanced answer but I would hope that land would be redistributed along wealth under a people's government and then this question would be addressed properly at that time. Instead of people virtue signalling themselves into landlord harassment, rental debt, evictions, and homelessness. Of course, the land one owns can also be used in ways to materially support other comrades, too. Even if it's just the ability to let someone crash on your couch without your landlord evicting everyone for a breach of lease because you had a guest stay longer than 3 nights without permission. That would be one example of White people with some money and ability using their privilege, even in a minor way, to really help others.
We don't always have to look at everything from the analytically negative, critical side. We can also look for ways to build positive movement with the avenues open to some of us.
Thanks, that actually helps me think about things a little differently.
The religious ferocity some Americans hold for private property is not okay. I'd love a house with a yard small enough for a garden and a fruit tree in front people could grab from. But like, it takes a much of fucked up mindset to want to shoot anyone you want to see just walking on the sidewalk nearby.
