09/11/2023
Is there any meaningful difference between: “To Own” and “To Control”?
Let’s take a look at the terms `to own’ and ‘To control’. Let’s compare these terms to see if there is any meaningful difference between ‘owning’ something and ‘controlling it’ when it comes to a government, real estate, and the means of production. Especially since you can’t take anything you with you when you die.
Then let’s look at Communism and Socialism and in light of these terms ‘to own’ and ‘to control’ and explain if there is any meaningful difference between them when you consider that the ruling classes, or someone, is always in control of a government. When this is considered, does that make communism look a whole lot like Feudalism in terms of de facto distribution of wealth, power, and control?
Well to start, we have to ask ourselves, what system would make it easier for the ruling classes to maintain control? What would allow them absolute power?
Well, Feudalism would, of course. That’s the way the old school ruling classes did things. At least before the Gutenberg Printing Press induced information age gave us literacy, science, and democracy, that is.
Back then the ruling classes, or Feudal Lords, owned ALL the property. Everyone who wasn’t them, were serfs, or slaves.
To Own
To own something means to having legal or moral rights to something, including property, assets, or resources. Ownership often entails the ability to use, sell, or dispose of something as one sees fit, within legal and ethical constraints.
To Control
To control means having power or authority over something or someone, often with the ability to direct or influence its behavior or use. Control can come in many forms, such as direct physical control, legal or regulatory control, or social or cultural control.
For “The Ruling Classes”, To Rule may as well mean the same thing as to own. And in fact, they will continue to rule, only uninhibited by anyone else, no middle classes, no “New Money” upward climbers, Not in a Classless Society where private property is forbidden. Forbidden for the 99% that is.
In terms of communism and socialism, the concept of ownership is central to these ideologies.
However, in both communism and socialism, control is centralized in the state, which is supposed to represent the collective will of the people. The ruling class in these systems are the ones who control the government, which controls the means of production and directs economic activity.
Communism takes this a step further than socialism by advocating for the abolition of private property altogether. In theory, this would mean that everyone is supposed to have equal access to resources and wealth, and there would be no need for ownership in the traditional sense. So it would all come down to who is in control.
In this sense, communism and socialism share more than a few similarities with feudalism, which was a hierarchical system in which power and wealth were concentrated in the hands of a ruling class of lords and nobles. In feudalism, the lord owned the land, but the serfs worked it and were subject to the lord’s control.
So while communism and socialism may have as their stated mission, to create a more equitable society by redistributing wealth and resources, the reality is that someone still needs to be in control of the government and the allocation of resources.
This can lead to a de-facto concentration of power and wealth in the hands of a few — the ruling classes, much like in feudalism or other authoritarian systems, which is basically a hierarchical system of land ownership with all power and control in the hands of a small ruling elite.
So Why Do the Ruling Classes Want a Marxist Revolution?
It’s hard being the Ruling Classes in a Democracy, or Constitutional Republic. The constant challenge of constantly controlling the narrative, all the while remaining mostly invisible, What a tangled web that is to weave.
Feudalism by any other name still abolishes private property for the serfs, and that’s all that matters. The Ruling Classes will still rule, only now, they will rule absolutely.
But those are PEOPLE’S Movements, you say. Grass Roots movements growing from the ground up!?, not from the Top of the hierarchy, why would the richest and most powerful want a people’s revolution of the working class proletariat to throw off the chains of the Owners of production?
Escapees from Communist China and the Soviet Bloc have inoculated America from the evils of Marxism in the past, but it seems every generation needs a new lesson. - Miranda Devine
