Land and ownership
No human being has ever bought their birth on this planet. Yet the right to live on Earth has been made into a tradable commodity—with an obligation to pay interest. As with capital, an ever-growing part of the Earth’s surface is falling into the hands of an ever-smaller group of people. And as with capital, people ‘enrich’ themselves through land mainly at the expense of other people and the planet. In most areas, land has become so expensive that it’s almost impossible to gain financially from it without destroying it or piling buildings on it.
Oddly enough, when it comes to extraterrestrial terrain, we seem to exhibit less insanity. The Outer Space Treaty, effected in 1967 and now signed by 111 countries, stipulates that any nation may freely explore the entire extraterrestrial space—including everything that floats in it—but no nation or country may claim dominion over it.
Why there yes and on Earth no? According to the treaty, because freedom of exploration contributes to international scientific cooperation and thus to greater understanding, and thus to more robust, more peaceful relations between states and people.1See Outerspacetreaty.org. A friend of mine came up with another reason: our collective consciousness has grown since we started claiming land, and out of this growing awareness arose a different choice when the time came to decide on matters away from Earth.
Both reasons I find hopeful, but I also see a treaty that hasn’t been tested yet. As I write these words, no person has set foot on an alien plot for over three days. What people have managed to do, frequently, is dishonour agreements they’ve signed.
Maybe it’s a case of waiting for the first extraterrestrial settlers to flout the treaty. Or… of us coming to our senses before then, here on Earth.
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- 1See Outerspacetreaty.org. ↩︎
