The Splendor of Others
Can one be happy while not owning anything? (Part 3 of the "Sabine Street" One Square Mile section.)
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_2400,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F492b9011-0b25-4d3b-b7ef-0579c29baf1c_5000x3750.jpeg)
The vision behind One Square Mile is largely photographic and written explorations of one square mile patches in cities, towns and countryside. I’ll encourage you to look around, explore and consider, and I’ll sometimes share a few opinions such as in this piece.
Let’s go back to what I’m calling the “Sabine Street” section of Houston - a roughly one-square mile zone that ranges from charming and/or dilapidated homes and buildings to some of the planet’s finer modern skyscrapers. We’ll also explore the notion that certain anti-capitalistic capitalists are touting that “you’ll own nothing and be happy.”
It’s an interesting patch on Earth and I frankly scratch my head that such a dramatic range of subjects is so densely contained in one mere square mile.
Now, let’s get to the two subjects of this piece… first, more stuff found in this particular square mile as seen in embedded images, and second, the notion of owning nothing and being happy. Observe the image below from Houston’s most recent Cars and Coffee, a cool and free event held in many towns and cities across the United States, and in this case my self-described “Sabine Street” square mile.
The folks in the image are ogling the splendor of others. There are classic as well as brand-new Ferraris, Porsches, Mercedes, Chevys, Dodges, Fords, Lamborghinis, VW’s and more… Older cars and trucks are restored to brand specs (or not) or they are tricked out. It’s a great place to wander around and drink your favorite morning beverage while mingling with others.
If you’re looking to photograph singular vehicles unobstructed by legs, hands, arms, faces, butts and more, it’s not such a great place. Plus, summer mornings in Houston means you’re sweating… But that’s not why you go!
You go to relish in the human imagination and the lines of beautiful objects. You go out of an acknowledged or unacknowledged respect for how the internal combustion engine spurred humankind forward in so many, many respects. You go out of admiration of human innovation - constant improvements in design and materials and horsepower and the creation of automobiles that seem to have a soul… or, perhaps better put, automobiles with soul.
![People gather for a car show.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_474,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fab7a611f-8ea7-477a-93ae-f2899a8e8a92_3750x5000.jpeg)
![People gather for a car show.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_474,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1e7ccab2-32dd-4958-9e12-8a247c37198b_5000x3750.jpeg)
![People gather for a car show.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_474,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcd110f5e-674b-4291-bf31-4b73a86161bb_3750x5000.jpeg)
Consider that each of these vehicles is owned by someone. There is an emotional and logical connection between the owner and vehicle. Owners are caretakers, almost parent like, with a vested interest in the vehicle. The vehicle is like a home or castle and you know the saying… “a man’s home is his castle.” This reference was first expressed by English judge Sir Edward Coke, who wrote in 1604 that “the house of every one is to him as his Castle and Fortress as well for defense against injury and violence, as for his repose.” The term has been obviously been simplified over the past 400 years.
For whatever reason, I thought of cars and I thought of ownership and the “predictions” being touted by the World Economic Forum that world governments should rapidly move toward the notion that individuals should own nothing. (WEF are the folks who host the prominent Davos meetings.)
Whether WEF is actually advocating or merely contemplating public ownership of goods and services won’t be solved here; at a minimum, a number of speakers and influencers at their meetings do stake out the virtues of global systems that seem to limit individual choices and that will likely cost even more (the carbon reduction tax is just one example). Regardless, in light of a myriad of environmental, economic and social programs set by the UN and contemplated by WEF, the question of private ownership is the subject.
The question for you and me is would you be happy if you owned nothing? If you are neck deep in debt and can’t see your way out of it, the answer might be “perhaps” or even “yes.” If you’re very poor, the promise of universal basic income certainly has an appeal. State-provided food and housing might just provide you with the proper motivation to politically endorse such a philosophy. But what about the rest of us? What about you?
My current answer is a little bit yes and a whole lotta no.
Do I have to own something to enjoy it? No. One of the best motorcycle rides in my life was on a rented Honda CF 600 while in Lisbon, Portugal. Didn’t own it, didn’t live there. But I did own a larger and faster motorcycle and rode it all the time, so I was happy to rent for the picturesque Lisbon streets.
I have rented lens and was quite happy. Didn’t even have lens envy because, well, I owned other lenses. I am happy to be in a friend’s Porsche - not a drop of envy or jealousy… just sheer happiness. But then, my friend owns the Porsche and I gladly own a 12-year-old SUV and like to be able to step into my garage and go somewhere immediately. Such is true when I lived in Chicago and could walk to the train station. Such is true now in concrete-prone Houston.
I have enjoyed the sports teams of others, enjoyed others’ swimming pools, whether publicly or privately owned. I was once quite content in a spartan room at the educational campus of a former employer. But then… I was a homeowner and it was a temporary experience.
Ogling another person’s vehicle is one thing… but the paradigm shifts considerably when everything is state owned and the motivated owner becomes a borrower of things. Things… anything and everything. The WEF projection suggests people would have to rent and borrow their necessities from the all-beneficent state, which would become the sole proprietor of all goods. Talk about having the market cornered! And just imagine the all-new 2036 Corvette after the collectivists get a hold of it.
There’s an old Soviet saying: “You pretend to work, and we pretend to pay you.” This is what happens when private ownership is neutered or negated.
There are reasons that Porsche was manufacturing in Austria and West Germany while the East Germans were blessed with the Trabant.
Human beings are complex creatures. The human spirit requires a level of freedom - the ability to waiver, wonder, wander, create, explore, innovate, take risks and freely express ideas - all of which are tamed, repressed or extinguished by autocratic rule or autocratic systems that “manage” such basic human instincts. Just look at the explosion of thought, innovation and creativity in Europe and the United States over the past 300-500 years. Drink in the achievements that occurred in America during the golden age, the late 1800s through the mid-1900s, when America was the pre-eminent innovator and industrial power. All of this occurred in a largely capitalist, largely free-market economy that underscored private property rights.
Private property is the epicenter of freedom. John Adams wrote, “Property must be secured or liberty cannot exist.” He and many others directly linked ownership of property with liberty. Personal property are the fruits of your labor. They are an incentive.
As explained by Investopedia, in linking private ownership and efficiency, “Private property promotes efficiency by giving the owner of resources an incentive to maximize its value. The more valuable a resource, the more trading power it provides the owner of the resource. This is because, in a capitalist system, someone who owns property is entitled to any value associated with the property.”
In a state-controlled economy, the fruits of one’s labor are performed with a state-owned public asset. Such fruits do not belong to the individual but to a host of people. The net result is diffused. It’s similar to lighting in photography, you can use a strong direct light or a diffused, softer, wider light that requires the exact same wattage. If you want more people to get more light, that wider, diffused light will require much more output.
I contend that you can own little and be happy (see downsizing, tiny houses, minimalism) but the concept of no one owning anything is yet another extension of pluralistic communism or pluralistic democratic socialism that leads to autocratic machinations. That’s a nice way of putting it. There are few instances of success under such systems. (More on that in a second.)
American innovation in the golden age
Professors/thinkers at the University of Chicago and Harvard Business School conducted a comprehensive study on innovation during America’s golden age. Published in Harvard Business Review, they brilliantly built “a systematic data set that contains millions of patented inventions and millions of individuals” in U.S. censuses from 1880 to 1940.
Their research found that innovation flourished in:
“densely population areas where people could interact with one another,
where capital markets to finance innovation were strong,
and where inventors had access to well-connected markets.”
Inventors were generally highly educated and “typically invented in pursuit of profit.” The financial returns to innovation were large. Stating the obvious, this didn’t happen under a communistic or democratic socialistic regime.
The paper is instructive, contains much more information and is definitely worth checking out.
The notion of state rule over things economic should always be considered in light of how government is exceptionally inefficient at most of what it touches. This inefficiency is largely forgiven in military matters but should be rejected on many fronts as it floats on clouds called Lack of Competition and Limited Accountability.
Okay, but what about China?
China’s economic ascension is inescapable. Some laud the model of “socialism with Chinese characteristics” and I readily acknowledge a limited understanding. But what we do know with certainty is that China’s rapid ascension would not have happened without massive loans and massive investments by U.S. and European governments and companies, as well as the ridiculous handing over of huge chunks of one’s ownership stake (and know-how) simply to do business in a promising market, regardless of its size.
Owner/Investor: Hi, I’d like to sell my products in your market.
Reply: It would be an honor to be your trusted partner in a 50/50 joint venture with your R&D, technology, capital, years of investments and business knowledge.
China’s economic surge would be exceptionally limited without:
the massive private and public capital loaned or provided China’s government and corporations,
China’s admission into the World Trade Organization under the assumption that it would follow western democratic rules and ethics,
an exceptionally cheap and large labor pool that largely resulted in US companies erasing American employees for the sake of greater competitiveness (lower costs) and higher profits,
autocratic totalitarian rule that ensured submission by its citizens or the re-education, destruction or death of those who objected,
short-term thinking, quarterly earnings demands or greed by US corporations,
weak responses and lack of planning and vision by almost all US administrations that have allowed a warped trade imbalance over the past 25-30 years,
a propensity towards industrial espionage, corporate theft and theft of intellectual property resulting in the annual cost of $225-$600 billion, (uh, just from US companies alone),
and the genuine goodwill of the American public.
On the last point, there are 370,000 Chinese students who are welcomed into the United States and the country’s institutions of higher learning.
Strangely, all of the above has been happening while the FBI acknowledges such massive theft each and every year by the communist Chinese government, corporations, businesses and individuals. That’s the sickening and disheartening cost of counterfeit goods, pirated software, and theft of trade secrets. A CNBC survey found that 1 in 5 corporations say China has stolen intellectual property within the previous year. The same thing has happened and is happening in Europe, Asia, Africa and South America. And most know little or nothing about it…
What a strange world we live in when most of our corporate media only selectively and very infrequently reports on this issue.
The annual cost to the U.S. economy of counterfeit goods, pirated software, and theft of trade secrets is between $225 billion and $600 billion.
Source: FBI.gov
So… what about China’s socialism (communism) versus U.S. capitalism? China’s ascendancy has occurred in a lop-sided manner that demands a huge portion of your goods and services before admission. This is necessary to point out so that corporate strategists and politicians don’t continue to be bamboozled. The level playing field is more akin to the Grand Canyon (we are the suckers at the bottom, not the ones looking down).
While the subject is complex, China’s governance is one-sided, unfair and without goodwill. No, it’s actually worse. It is ruthless and amoral.
Quick… how many people died in Tiananmen Square? Well, we don’t really know… several hundred, several thousand, with even more people imprisoned. Social harmony, i.e., the ruthless quashing of dissenting opinion, has a price.
How about those Uyghurs or the Kazakhs and other Turkic-Muslims living in China? There are an estimated 2 million… yes, 2 million people detained in China’s network of concentration camps. Yeah, but the US is the most incarcerated population, you cry! True that… but only a small minority (estimated roughly at 4-6% by advocacy groups) are potentially falsely imprisoned. The rest are murderers, rapists, arsonists, brutal thugs who have committed horrendous assaults, robbers, thieves, drug dealers and the like. In China, just among the targeted Muslims, the vast majority do not fit such a description.
Really, you should stop and click this link… Accounts as captured earlier in 2023 by the Human Rights Foundation are blood-curdling. There are many other sources and documentaries that outline these barbaric measures, described here by Secretary Blinken as genocide.
This is not China-bashing. It’s just a sober look at reality.
The net result here is first and foremost to acknowledge that the capitalist system — despite the flaws of the nation’s history and set within constantly refined U.S. laws and regulations — stimulated unprecedented advances, discoveries, inventions, wealth, power and opportunity for Americans as reflected by improved living standards and gross domestic product per capita compared to the rest of the world.
So, why exactly are we suddenly interested in owning nothing?
One square mile. Easily understood. You walk a mile, turn left, walk a mile and turn left, walk a mile and turn left, and then walk another mile right back to where you began.
If interested in the “Sabine Street” square mile, here is Part 1 and Part 2.
Images taken with a #Fujifilm GFX100S.
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