Virtual Ownership

Ownership pervades our lives and in a strange way, shapes many of the things we do. Adam Smith wrote, “Every man and woman lives by exchanging, or becomes in some measure a merchant, and the society itself grows to be what a commercial society is properly”. Much of our life story can be told by describing the ebb and flow of our particular possessions – what we get and what we give up.

Since so much of our lives are dedicated to ownership, wouldn’t it be nice to make the best decisions about this? Unfortunately, this is rarely the case. We are mostly fumbling around in the dark. Why - because of three irrational quirks in our human nature. The first quirk is that we fall in love with what we already have. The second quirk is that we focus on what we may lose, rather than what we may gain. The third quirk is that we assume other people will see the transaction from the same perspective as we do.

Ownership also has “peculiarities”. For one, the more work you put into something, the more ownership you begin to feel for it. Pride of ownership is inversely proportional to the ease with which one assembles things. Another peculiarity is that we can begin to feel ownership even before we own something. “Virtual ownership” is one mainspring of the advertising industry. We get a catalog of hiking clothing from Patagonia, see a polyester fleece pullover and we start thinking of it as ours. The trap is set, and we willingly walk in. We become partial owners even before we own anything.

Ownership is not limited to material things. It can also apply to points of view. Once we take ownership of an idea – whether it’s about politics or sports – what do we do? We love it perhaps more than we should. We prize it more than it is worth. And most frequently, we have trouble letting go of it because it can’t stand the idea of its loss. What are we left with then, an Ideology – rigid and unyielding.

There is no known cure for the ills of ownership. As Adam Smith said, it is woven into our lives. But being aware of it might help. Everywhere around us we see the temptation to improve the quality of our lives by buying a larger home, a second car, a lawn mower and so on. But once we change our possessions we have a very hard time going back down. Moving backward to our pre-ownership state is a loss, one that we can’t abide, it’s psychologically painful.