According to the most authoritative literature on the history of commerce, economics, and law, the concept of "theft" in European civilization—and by analogy, Western civilization—has undergone three very compelling evolutionary and integrative stages: 1) theft in the strict sense, as the illegal appropriation of others' belongings; 2) deceit and fraud in counterfactual and commercial relationships, as a counterpoint to law and even to Commercial Law itself; and 3) political corruption and the adulteration of the rule of law through the transgression of civil and administrative laws, thanks to the supreme—and unchallenged—power of a global market and planetary capitalism.
Today, totalitarianism is not exercised by the state, but by the market. But this is not all. In fact, this is not even the essence of the issue. The important thing, perhaps because it is irreversible—and unremitting—is the following.
There is a fourth stage in the historical evolution of "theft." A fourth stage that not even Paolo Prodi, in his book on the seventh commandment and the sacred imperative, so categorical before Kant, "Thou shalt not steal"—Theft and the Market in Western History (2009)—comes to suspect, let alone intuit.
I refer, in my own terms and without ambiguity, to the denial of private property. I am not talking about Marxism. Marxism today—and for decades—has been a historical mirage, only visible from a chronic and perhaps incurable adolescence, still lingering in religious seminaries and faculties—lowercase—of philosophy or self-help. I am talking about globalization.
Today, the world is moving towards the denial of private property. It is the most sophisticated form of theft: preventing human beings from accessing essential resources, any resource that allows them to support themselves and own something with legal security and economic stability.
The occupation of housing—protected by law—the financial impossibility of acquiring it, the inability to access rentals for living, the limitation of individual or personal mobility through the use of one's own vehicle, or even the defense of one's own life—as essential and irreversible private property—are just some of the steps that foreshadow, as commercial vanguards, this global project and totalitarian objective: the denial of private property in all aspects of human life. Including one's own life, that is, personal biological survival. Or whatever remains of it. Because there will be no law to protect you, unless it is Commercial Law, whose objective is not to protect you, but the market that exploits you laborally and economically.
The goal and purpose of 21st-century globalization is to make it impossible for human beings to access private production of all types of goods, from the eradication of food sovereignty—they will not be able to grow anything of their own (the concentration of life in cities has been aiming for this outcome for decades)—to the inability to access any resource that could provide them with minimal autonomy or freedom.
Isolated in an urban area, their survival is and will be entirely vulnerable and easily overcome. However, they will be able to walk their dog and have access to a simulacrum of an urban "garden": they can play at asceticism and practice the narcissism of humility. And obey without alternatives or possible intelligence. They will feel a lot, and think of nothing, because for decades they have been educated to feel, not to think. They will feel, or not, happiness, but they will not think about their freedom.
The human being at the end of the 21st century will own nothing. And they will have no resources to own anything. It will not be denied by the state, as the state will no longer exist by then. It will be denied by global and borderless commerce.
The main resource deficit begins with an education that falls short of the demands of the life it must face and the reality against which it will have to fight. The fragility of healthcare resources comes immediately after or may even be simultaneous. The self-employed will become franchisees, and parasitism will be what it already is: a form of extreme and entirely dependent survival.
Today, there still exists a brief repertoire of generations that have made their lives a reality of private goods and that have had the opportunity—not all of whom have taken advantage of it with the same legality and fortune—of having forged their best or worst fortunes. They are the last generations that have fought, studied, and worked as the new ones no longer can, or perhaps do not know how to do. Because they have not been taught or encouraged to do so. Much less demanded.
The younger ones, authentic "Mowglis" or "children of the jungle" of the 21st century, use this verb—demand—as subjects, never as indirect objects. These descendants will pay more to receive the inheritance—if there is any, a very doubtful prospect, as their parents are not in the best position—than what that same inheritance is worth in cash. Many of these "Mowglis" will even be forced to renounce it due to lack of liquidity.
Keep in mind that fiscal oversight, like the payment of taxes—countless—is the legal way that democratic states, in the throes of their current political agony, use to appropriate—naturally in a way that is as legal as it is abusive—the personal production—and private property—of human beings.
If this is not "theft," use Orwell's dictionary (the Academy doesn't concern itself with such trifles). Idealism reigns in all cemeteries, and the elephant's cemetery is no exception. Also, be warned that Commercial Law is not a dictionary, but something that increasingly resembles an apagogé. The Internet, social networks, and mass media are already making sure to remind you daily that it is wise to come to globalization with the agenda well memorized.
Jesús G. Maestro
The Denial of Private Property
in 21st Century Globalization