Mine!

Invisible ownership rules govern your life and dictate losers and winners.

The primary function of human society is to help people navigate competing claims to limited resources. While many tend to have a binary view of what they own versus what they do not, rules of ownership prove ambiguous and complex. The ownership stories people cling to tend to embody common maxims, such as “first come, first served.” Often, dueling claims to the same resource arise, and the person or corporation society deems “an owner” turns out to be the one with the superior story.

Invisible ownership norms are the “remote control” for much of everyday life: People who own valuable resources steer people to behavior that benefits them. Ownership rules grow increasingly impenetrable today. For example, you might think you own the Amazon Kindle book you download, but technically, you only own a license to the book, which Amazon owns and can delete from your device. Ownership is a complex and evolving “social engineering tool” that drives people to internalize ideas about what they ought to do, then change their behavior without always consciously understanding ...