Henry George was right.

in material terms, to "have" something means cops will enforce your will over that thing. put it simply, private property = cops.

ownership is the obfuscation of the fact we all live under the boots of a military occupation. I "own" this land = if you camp here armed stationary soldiers will shoot you.

This is why someone can have much less stuff than someone else and still be wealthier than them. Consider a medieval king, who lacked access to your smartphone or refrigerator or flu vaccine and yet was still vastly wealthier than you.

That king wasn’t wealthy because they had more stuff than you. That king was wealthy because they possessed power over others.

This is also why someone can have very little stuff and still not be poor, in any meaningful sense. A poor person in a modern capitalist state lives a life of degradation and stress. They might go hungry, or reduced to eating garbage. They might be subject to humiliating employment requirements or intrusive demands by bosses and landlords. Their lives are shorter and filled with more illness than the wealthy. They live with the constant anxiety that the whim of a wealthy person will deprive them of their livelihood, their home, or their ability to care for their family.

People in forager societies, while possessing many fewer material goods and amenities, lack “poverty” like this in any comparable sense.

Rich don't usually have good taste either, btw.

and they have power because we give them power. I don't know how many people I've talked to who say they're rich so they must be good and successful. Stop buying crap; tune them out; stop kissing their $#&&$

@dyanam0

Unfortunately, many people who are wealthy did not get that way because they sell us things, but because they control metaphorical toll booths and gates in our economy that we must pass through, paying them a fee each time.