Who owns us? Who owns our future?
Since the very beginning, who owns the world, its natural assets, and its people’s productivity has been an open question, the goal of dynasties, wars, and tax policies, and the cause of economic, environmental and social inequities. Ownership is not a legalism, nor a settled and sedate arrangement between buyer and seller. The accrual, demise, and contingent nature of ownership rights—who uses the assets, who holds their financial value, debt service, tax and other flows, and who bears the risks that ownership will be unwound—all ride on an economy’s existential question: Who owns us?
February 27, 2013