When the man was alive, everyone lived on the plot of land, the man and his wife, along with his 4 sons and their families.
Everyone worked on the plot of land. It was quite big so some folks will go out and lay traps and hunt for animals. Some of the family members would plant some produce and harvest the food. Wood was abundant and they built their own houses. They even had excess to sell to other people in town so they had excess money to do other things.
But they didn't over-harvest the land. They worked on a small area enough for them to eat and a little bit more and left the other parts of the land as forest area.
Life wasn't easy, but it wasn't hard either. There was work for everyone, they had time to spend with each other. The daily activities kept them fit and relatively healthy. They didn't had food and lodging and clothes from the work they did on the plot of land.
When the man died, he left the plot of land to his sons.
The eldest son wanted to continue with his father's way of life. Cos that's what he grew up with all along and he was the one most used to this way of life.
The second son wanted to cut down all the forest area and turn all the land into farmland and hire people to run a large scale farm.
The 3rd son wanted to lease out the unused land to any party and collect rent and not have to toil the land anymore.
The youngest son wanted to sell off the piece of land and move to the town, buy a home there and find work there.
So obviously the 4 brothers couldn't come to a common conclusion and so they decided to split up the plot of land.
And they each did whatever they wanted with it.
Now there's no right or wrong with this story...
You see, this is very much like humans and how we have progressed.
We were all hunter gatherers long ago. And food was free. Life was simple. What more is there to do except to feed the family and remain healthy?
Then some people decided that they wanted more.
Some wanted to plunder the land. Eat more now, we'll think about the future when the time comes.
Some want to maintain the same way of life so they take a more chill path in life and eat what they need and let nature take care of the excess.
Other people will think of other ways to live their own lives.
As our values are different, we end up divided and living different lives. The brothers split up and find new ways of living. Same like many of us.
The thing is, without ownership of property, there's no real way to prevent someone else from plundering your land. In an ideal world, we would all consume what we needed and share the excess. Everyone would have enough and the Earth would flourish. There really is enough on Earth for everyone and everything animal. It is due to greed and lives of excess and improvements in technology that we over-harvest the Earth. And to prevent someone else from over-harvesting shared property, we NEED to have ownership. So if someone else wants to over-harvest his own piece of land then that's his own problem.
So there's no right or wrong with any decision made.
But for me, as I look around I see so much excess, of people wasting so much and I wonder, where are we all going as a species. And we are all here for 80+ years. If we work in a farm or as hunter gatherers, vs in a corporate life using iPhones and technology, what's the difference?
It's still 80+ years.
In the end the brothers split up and live different lives, as what we all do, we also will split up and live different lives. Some will spend more money than their siblings, some will squander their inheritance, etc...
And yet, when I look at things from an external point of view... Wouldn't everyone be better off by living off the land, not over consuming and helping each other as a community and sharing resources with the trust that everyone else doesn't over consume.
And that's where it wouldn't really work out... Cos... How are we supposed to build such a trust when it is human nature to be greedy and over consume?
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