Making the bed we're lying in

from the HoughtonMifflin textbook "Economics" 5th edition, 2002

"Market failures may result because of an abscence of private property rights.Consider the pollution caused by auto emissions. Each driver of a car is imposing an externality on you. The problem is that neither you nor the driver owns the airspace in which the emissions occur. If you did you could restrict the driving activity or you could charge the driver a price that would pay for the externality. If the driver owned the airspace you would have to pay the driver not to drive and pollute. In either case, the externality would no longer be external; it would be part of the private costs."

From "Cheif Joseph" of the Nez Peirce, approx. 1830

"The earth was created by the assistance of the sun, and it should be left as it was . . .The country was made without lines of demarcation, and it is no man's business to divide it . . .I see Whites all over the country gaining wealth, and I see their desire o give us lands which are worthless . . .The earth and myself are of one mind. The measure of the land and the measure of our bodies are the same."
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This is one of the most distressing parallels I think I've ever come across, in the way it informs my actions. Even the wording in the economics textbook is fairly combative and individual-centered. Frankly, when someone is "imposing an externality" on me I am immediately outraged. Never mind that I'm imposing the very same externality on them. And . . .say I do wish to start my own "learning center farm" -- I still have to hoop-jump through business plans and buying land. We can not go back. But the reality that "the earth and myself" are the same . . .in that, as soon as you cut it up you kill it, is exactly true. Cut of Cheif Joseph's arm and create--say--South Africa, then further divide that country so that it is too worried about ownership within its own boundaries to notice that Cheif Joseph's left leg has been cut off to make--say-- Ecuador and Arizona. Inside all these large cuts are the mini-cuts of alarm systems and 'no-trespassing' and my yard and your yard and my hedges and your tree . . .and the only answer turns out to be lines drawn in terms of who owns airspace and bodies of water and shooting down planes and boats in the wrong spot.

It's time to go to cuteoverload.com for me. . .
This is just how we think. It's so deep.