Land Ownership is the Root of Slavery
A thought experiment explains what is happening today
Everything in nature is truthful. Humans have become untruthful and, as a result, fall deeper and deeper into slavery. How did this happen? The following thought experiment provides an answer.
Imagine two early humans feeding on fruit, nuts, and meat. They become partners in order to work together to find food. Early human X is stronger, so he goes hunting. Early human Y collects fruit and nuts. In the evening they meet to share and eat. Y brings food every evening because he always finds fruit and nuts. X does not bring food every evening because sometimes the hunt is unsuccessful. The partnership benefits both. If X has hunting luck, Y gets meat without having to hunt. If X has no hunting luck, he still gets food.
One day, X has an idea. Instead of hunting, he treats himself to a day off. Because this is against the partnership agreement, Y must not know. In the evening, X says that he has had no luck hunting. With this, he has invented the lie and the abuse; he abuses Y's trust. Because the lie worked, X now does it more often. But one day, while looking for food, Y comes across X lying around lazily. The first partnership dispute in the history of humankind ensues. Trust is gone, mistrust is born. I explain why we humans have ideas and can, therefore, lie in my article “This is the Difference Between Humans and Animals.”
X and Y share a territory. A territory is an area that offers everything for survival, such as space, water, and food. In nature, animals or groups of animals use territories that are just big enough for them to survive in.
One day, X has an idea that is even more beneficial than the lie. He declares himself the owner of the shared territory and presents Y with a fait accompli: Y has to provide food for both of them from now on – or leave the territory. As X is stronger, Y has to comply. He could leave the territory and find his own ... but there are no more free territories, because the stronger early humans have done the same everywhere. Y only has the choice of who he has to collect food for from now on.
By declaring himself the owner of the territory, X has also become the owner of the resources it contains. He now has more space, water, and food than he needs to survive. By gathering food for both of them in X’s territory, Y buys food and a right of residence from X; he pays with his labor.
Since early human Y needs space, water, and food to survive, he now depends on X – or another landowner; he is a slave. Along with land ownership, early human X has also invented resource ownership and slavery. From now on there are owners and slaves; rulers and subjects.
Early human X can now laze around as he pleases. He just has to watch Y so that he does his work and doesn’t get the idea of rebelling against X.
When the slaves reproduce, their numbers increase. This is both beneficial and dangerous for the owners. The more slaves someone has, the more surplus they can generate. But slaves could band together and then rise against the owner(s). The following measures shall prevent this:
1) Cooperation between owners
2) Guardians
3) Prices
4) Distractions
5) Manipulation of natural needs
Let’s look at the measures.
1) Cooperation between owners
The owners coordinate with each other so that the conditions for the slaves are similar everywhere. This prevents slaves from moving to more attractive territories.
2) Guards
The owners select slaves who are strong or skilled in using weapons. They pay them with food and other privileges in return for them monitoring the other slaves.
3) Prices
The slaves work so that they can fulfill their natural physical needs. They work to survive. The more expensive life is, the more they have to work for it. The more they work, the less time they have to think about their situation or even organize for an uprising. So the owners make life as expensive as possible.
4) Distractions
Another word for distraction is entertainment. Its purpose is to keep someone busy with something so that they don’t do something else – such as thinking about themselves and their own life situation. In ancient Rome, the rulers realized this as ‘bread and games.’ Cheap or free grain and free events distracted people from political problems.
There were stadiums and theaters where chariot races, gladiator fights, and animal fights took place. The Colosseum was the largest amphitheater ever built in the world. It offered space for around 50,000 people. The largest stadium in Rome was the Circus Maximus, which could hold 250,000 people. That’s almost twice as many as the largest sports stadium in the world today can seat, which “only” has 132,000 seats ... the cricket stadium in Ahmedabad, India. With 70,000 seats, the Allianz Arena in Munich is currently only the 80th largest stadium in the world and holds just over a quarter of the people of the Circus Maximus.
Chariot races and gladiator fights became sporting events in countless disciplines, including mental disciplines such as chess. Gladiators became athletes. The reach of the events was increased to gigantic proportions through TV broadcasts. For example, 1.5 billion viewers saw the final of the soccer World Cup in Qatar.
5) Manipulation of natural needs
Everyone has natural physical and mental needs. The physical needs relate to the resources already discussed. The mental needs are mental growth and the fulfillment of one’s purpose in life. If these needs remain unfulfilled, people remain chronically needy, which weakens them. I analyze our needs in my article “What Do You Need?”.
The owners have space, water, and food in abundance and thus control the fulfillment of the slaves’ natural physical needs. In addition, these needs are manipulated to further weaken them.
Food provides you with what your body needs. If a healthy foodstuff is made bad, you may consume less of it or not consume it at all. This can lead to an under-supply of vital substances. Industrially processed foods confuse your digestive system: your metabolism gets confused, which weakens you. For example, years of eating a vegetarian diet weakened me massively. I talk about this in my article “I Was a Vegetarian for 36 Years – Then This Happened.”
Cuddling, ie close physical contact between familiar people, produces oxytocin. This hormone is very healthy; it lowers blood pressure, alleviates anxiety, and reduces stress. Intimate contact also produces the happiness hormone dopamine. By making touch, nudity, intimacy, sex, and pleasure taboo or even demonizing them, people are being cut off from an important power source.
When I was 20 years old, I had the following experience: I spent a month in Nigeria to put a software I had developed into operation and train the locals. One day, I saw two local men walking down a street holding hands. I asked my contact if the two were homosexual. The answer was: “No; people like to touch each other because it feels good.”
Growth is the principle of life. For us humans, it is primarily about mental growth. For this, you “only” need to be like a child: You curiously explore the world by asking it questions with all your senses and listening for answers. But unfortunately, growing up, you learned to try satisfying your natural mental hunger through substitute channels, such as food, possessions, sex, entertainment, and drugs. But none of these can satisfy your genuine curiosity, which is why you remain chronically mentally hungry. So you will use the substitute channels repeatedly, which can lead to addictions such as food addiction, shopping addiction, sex addiction, internet addiction, or drug addiction. See also my book “Curiosity – The Mental Hunger of Humans” and my article “How to Find Your Purpose in Life.”
Your intuition would lead you to your life’s purpose. But since you are busy making money to ensure your survival, you have no or too little time to find your calling and follow it; or you are so distracted that you don’t hear your inner voice at all.
Over time, it becomes easier and easier for the owners to maintain the system. The descendants of slaves are born into slavery and, therefore, do not even know what it is like to be free. As a result, they hardly ever think of questioning their situation or even wanting to change it.
The above considerations explain what is happening today. Some measures are implemented or organized subtly. For example, if someone “owns” a house with a garden, they have not yet become an owner in the sense of a ruler. Apart from the fact that property is often encumbered with loans for decades – and therefore usually actually belongs to the banks, people today depend on the “system” of the rulers in countless ways. Modern slavery is cleverly disguised.
People are also programmed to believe that they are free. They are inculcated with an illusionary concept of freedom, namely: “I am free if I can do what I want.” This power-based concept of freedom is not only illusionary, it inevitably leads to a global power pyramid. I explain the why and how in my article “There is Only One True Freedom.” Another measure is our monetary system: positive interest rates permanently shift values from poor to rich and, therefore, force the masses of people to work more and more in order to survive. See my articles “Bartering = Deceiving” and “Positive Interest Rates Make Us Poorer.”
Land ownership is the root of global enslavement. The power-based concept of freedom and today’s monetary system reinforce the effect. I explain how we can become truthful again in my article, “This is How We Become a Truthful Society.”
Further reading:
Article “This is the Difference Between Humans and Animals”
Article “What Do You Need?”
Article “I Was a Vegetarian for 36 Years – Then This Happened”
Book “Curiosity – The Mental Hunger of Humans”
Article “How to Find Your Purpose in Life”
Article “There is Only One True Freedom”
Articles “Bartering = Deceiving”
Article “Positive Interest Rates Make Us Poorer”
Article “This is How We Become a Truthful Society”
See also:
Article “To Survive as a Species, We MUST Work Together”