Toward a sense of universal ownership

IN a recent seminar I attended, an interesting sideshow grabbed my attention. A small group of the participants, what you call a “petit comite” huddled in a corner to tackle a very intriguing, complex issue.

They were talking about Intellectual Property Right (IPR), and one of them, a book publisher, was complaining about how his books are pirated even by those close to him, who copy and spread his publications through electronics.

This book publisher is a close friend of mine, and I truly commiserate with him because of the decrease of business he is now suffering due to the new technologies. But everybody else was also my friend. I listened to both sides, and tried to sort out things.

At the end of the day, what came forming in my mind was the idea that while there is such thing as IPR and private property, we should also be moving towards a sense of universal ownership over all goods, natural and man-made, that we have at the moment.

We have been negligent in that area, content with the status quo that obviously needs to be updated, if not purified and corrected, especially given the new developments and phenomena we are having today.

This, in fact, has been echoed in one of the points in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. Point 179 hits it bull’s eye when it says:

“The present historical period has placed at the disposal of society new goods that were completely unknown until recent times.

“This calls for a fresh reading of the principle of the universal destination of the goods of the earth and makes it necessary to extend this principle so that it includes the latest developments brought about by economic and technological progress.

“The ownership of these new goods—the results of knowledge, technology and know-how—becomes ever more decisive, because ‘the wealth of the industrialized nations is based much more on this kind of ownership than on natural resources.

“New technological and scientific knowledge must be placed at the service of mankind’s primary needs, gradually increasing humanity’s common patrimony…

“It is necessary to break down the barriers and monopolies which leave so many countries on the margins of development, and to provide all individuals and nations with the basic conditions which enable them to share in development.”

Sorry for the long quote, but I believe it is necessary to make this doctrine more known by everyone. The challenge we have at hand is enormous, since it would involve drastic and radical changes in our attitudes and culture.

Thing is we cannot deny the fact that while there is a need for reasonable profit for one’s work, we should avoid making our creations and inventions a tool for greed and dominion over others.

This is how I feel when I see how pharmaceutical products and the electronic goods are so commercialized that they worsen the gaps and divisions among peoples and nations. The rich get richer, while the poor get poorer. The smart ones get smarter, while the less-endowed get more miserable.

I have seen people dying simply because of what I feel is an inadequate if not unfair system of ownership we have at the moment. This situation is crying to heaven for correction.

With respect to the use of the goods of the earth, we should not make money the primary consideration. It’s charity. It’s justice. It’s mercy and compassion. These elements have to enter prominently in the equation. Otherwise, we would just be building an inhuman world.

So, this sense of universal ownership has to be made more familiar to everyone, especially to our leaders and other movers and shakers in the world. In another point of the Compendium, the same idea is articulated.

Point 178 says: “Man should regard external things that he legitimately possesses not only as his own but also as common in the sense that they should be able to benefit not only him but also others.”

Obviously, the road to this sense of universal ownership is tricky, to say the least. But we have to start. We may have to tackle the issue differently through the many items and cases involved in this question, but we have to start somewhere.

How I hope that a serious effort be done in this regard! It can be done anywhere—in the Church structure, or civil society, or government, or academe. But we need to do something about this.

May we be inspired to pursue this need further.