'You will own nothing...'

... being happy, that's another story

Reuters ‘fact check’ has reassured us that the World Economic Forum ‘does not have a stated goal to have people own nothing by 2030.’

Not ‘stated’, no; and unlikely to happen by 2030.

The paranoid storm about this was triggered by one of the WEF’s 2016 conference attendees, Danish MP Ida Auken. She wrote a piece entitled ‘Welcome To 2030: I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy And Life Has Never Been Better.’ This is no longer available on the WEF website but can still be read on Forbes.

In her utopia, technology has provided clean air and water and free everything: housing, clothing, transport. Auken later clarified that she meant it to be merely a basis for discussion and it’s not a perfect world - lack of privacy is an issue.

One thing that is true about the WEF is that in 2020 it announced plans for a Great Reset. It ‘generally suggests that a globalized world would be best-managed by a self-selected coalition of multinational corporations, governments and civil society organizations.’ It will all be eco, techno and of course entirely benevolent.

The naivety is astonishing. For an example of what happens when people start to fall for this kind of dream, see Cory Morningstar’s 2019 analysis of the Greta Thunberg phenomenon. According to Morningstar (herself a committed Green) Thunberg has been used as a figurehead behind which others are working to create a huge corporate moneyspinner, designed to monetise the Green movement and ‘unlock 100 trillion dollars from pension funds.’

As far as individuals owning nothing is concerned, the commercial world is well ahead of the WEF. The scam that is college education may fall apart as people begin to realise that in many cases a degree is not a good investment; but there are two things you cannot do without and big money is grabbing them both.

The first is health. In the US, if you are poor, you can sicken and die; if you wish to avoid that fate, you pay and pay. Take the case of former hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli: in 2015 he cornered the manufacturing rights for a drug called Daraprim, and used his monopoly to increase its price massively, from US$13.50 to $750.00 per pill. Here he is being interviewed at that time:

The second is housing. Buying a house has become very expensive and increasing numbers of young people cannot afford to get started on the property ladder; but the only other thing is to rent. Paying off the mortgage may take a long time, but renting never ends.

The challenge is getting greater in the US, because of hedge fund money and artificial intelligence (AI). The Young Turks explain in the video below, that computer algorithms can search the market for bargain properties to add to the investment portfolio and outbid private purchasers. This means that the public supply of affordable dwellings-to-own is increasingly restricted, house prices go up and so does the rent on alternatives.

The money system will find a way to absorb your disposable income. When both adult partners in a family went to work, residential property prices soared. Now speculators are moving in: last year, Wall Street bought 1 in 7 American homes available for sale.

Unless there is some deep change in public policy, the future for the ordinary citizen looks like renting forever, and if sick, either paying through the nose or suffering.

‘You will own nothing and be happy’: that’s half right.