The Surprising Decline of Personal Ownership Under Modern Capitalism

One of the great features of having an economic system that permits independent enterprise and open trade, is that it allows for the development of personal wealth and ownership. Personal ownership is being self accountable for the development and care of some type of resource. The social benefit of this kind of personal responsibility is significant. Personal ownership teaches accountability, thrift, enterprise and autonomy.

Surprisingly, however, many forms of personal ownership seem to be in decline, which appears to not be for a lack of capitalist policy, but rather a direct result of the some of the strategies that are commonly employed in our modern versions of capitalism. This includes areas like home ownership and also the development of business and industry.

Many industries are controlled by a relatively few number of players, and many tech industries do not even have commercial offerings for their key products available to consumers. Whether you like it or not, there
is no way to pay for google search, or for the personal use of facebook, which are each the respective primary use cases of each service.

The revenue these companies gain, primarily comes from third parties. When paying for consumption of a service is not even possible, it is very hard to claim there is any kind of personal ownership involved in the use of the service.