About Antonia Malchik
“Time alters what can be owned, and who can do the owning. ” —The Overstory, Richard Powers
“The law is to protect property, and it thinks too much of property. ”—Shadows on the Rock, Willa Cather
Private ownership and theft of the commons has ancient roots. Its enabling of resource and power hoarding is at the foundation of widespread societal and environmental ills.
On the Commons’s research on private property discards centuries of philosophical and legal arguments made in its defense—by philosophers like John Locke and jurist William Blackstone—for a much simpler explanation: theft. Or, “I took it; now it’s mine.