by Arjan Verschuur, participant of Court of Mother Earth

Introduction

Shortly after the presentation of the book Free, Equal and Living Together by Damaris Matthijsen, I got a copy pressed into my hands. “Because what Damaris writes and what you here on Court of Mother Earth do so well together,” said Makke van Vollenhoven, who is the Society Art course at Economy Transformers followed and had a seasonal spot at our campground. And Makke was right. I read the book in one sitting and was immediately raving about it. Both about the many points of recognition, and the additional insights it gave me.

Much of the new insight related to what Damaris called the key Property mentions. While reading, I realized that we are at Court of Mother Earth - intuitively - had already made a start on making land ‘free’ or ‘of itself,’ but that with respect to the ownership of labor and capital, we can still take some big steps so that ‘it’ ‘fits’ even better. In this blog, I focus on the production factor of labor. But for the clarity of my story, I want to start with the land.

Ownership of land

Before we bought the campsite in 2016 that we have since Court of Mother Earth mention, we had a brainstorming session about possibilities for crowdfunding part of the purchase. While we were working on that, one of the initiators had this inspiration: “Give the Earth back to itself!” We were all silent for a moment. Not because it was such a great payoff for our crowdfunding campaign, but because in that moment we all felt how true it is that the Earth belongs only to itself. And that it is a costly illusion that we can own parts of the Earth. Therefore, after purchasing the campsite, we immediately removed the land from the sphere of private ownership. We did this by legally owning the land under Court of Mother Earth into a foundation. The foundation leased the land to a cooperative on condition that the cooperative managed the land in an ecologically responsible manner. And finally, it is residents and guests who have leases that provide that they may enjoy - individually and together - the usufruct of (parts of) the land. Even before we knew the concept of ‘triple ownership,’ on Court of Mother Earth the ownership of land thus already triangulated. 

Triple ownership

Recently I attended a presentation by Jac Hielema about a ‘Capital Body for Free, Equal and Living Together’ that they want to establish from Economy Transformers. During this presentation, I actually only really understood what with ‘triple ownership’ is the division of roles between the three owners. These three owners were referred to by Jac as: ‘creative owner’, ‘economic owner’ and ‘legal owner’. Innerly, I immediately linked these three terms to the division of roles between foundation, cooperative and residents and guests with respect to the land under Court of Mother Earth. Residents and guests together enjoy the usufruct of the land and are thus economic owners. The cooperative is the company that is free to ‘work’ the land as it sees fit and is thus creative owner. And the foundation, which, as I wrote, is the legal owner, determines what the land may or may not be used for and must ensure that the cooperative (as creative owner) and residents and guests (as economic owner) have an equal voice in deciding this.

Inwardly, I also immediately linked the concepts of ‘creative owner,’ ‘economic owner,’ and ‘legal owner’ to the way we are on Court of Mother Earth settled the ownership of labor. And in the future could shape triple. For over a year we have been on Court of Mother Earth namely, talking to each other about how to make a move from economically ‘self-sufficient’ to economically ‘co-sufficient. The impetus to engage in this conversation was a flash of insight, which was preceded by four interrelated observations. 

The first observation was that - despite the hard work everyone does - on the one hand, some members of our community actually have less than adequate income, while there are others who have more than adequate income to meet their living needs.

The second observation was that several members of our community - in order to earn sufficient income - are doing work that they neither like nor are good at. This is particularly evident in the work involved in renting out ‘our’ vacation homes. I intentionally put the word ‘our’ in front of vacation homes between ‘...’ because these homes are not jointly owned, but privately owned and are also rented out at their own expense and risk. And in doing so, each person who rents out a vacation home performs all the possible work that this entails.

The third observation was that some members of our community - due to the time and energy they put into work to provide for their personal income - often do not get to do work that they do enjoy and are good at and that would benefit other members of our community and/or the community as a whole as well.

The fourth observation was that we are actually all always faced with the (impossible) choice of investing more time and energy in work for ourselves for which we are directly paid or in work for the community for which we are not paid, but which indirectly meets some of our material, social and cultural needs.

The flash of insight we had over a year ago was that all these observations are the result of the (obvious) way we acquire our income, namely: every man for himself. And that by distributing all the work - which now each one does for himself - in line with each one's talent across the whole group, we could all enjoy our work more and earn more income as a group than the current sum of our individual incomes. 

But how do you arrange that?

By linking the concepts of creative owner, economic owner and legal owner instead of the concept of land to the concept of labor, I suddenly saw how we can do that. To make that clear, I'll first make a quick trip to the labor relations common in our society.

Triple ownership of labor

In today's economy, it is common for an ‘employer’ to hire an ‘employee. The terms ’employer‘ and ’employee‘, by the way, contain an interesting inversion, because it is actually the ’employee‘ who - in return for payment of a certain remuneration - sells his work or labor capacity to the ’employer‘. So it would be more in line with the facts if we called the ’employer‘ laborer and/or wage earner and the ’employee‘ laborer and/or wage earner. Similarly, we can call a self-employed person a labor employer and his or her client a labor contractor. In both cases, Labor and Income are inseparable. 

We can only break the (economic) need to exchange or sell our individual labor for an individual income, when we separate Labor and Income. 

In order to separate labor and income, we need a third party, who instead of the labor employer receives the laborer's remuneration and instead of the laborer pays an income to the labor employer. An income that need not be equal to the remuneration paid by the laborer, but - depending on the income needs of the laborer - can also be lower or higher. 

With this third party added, we can create - as with the freeing of land and capital, also with respect to the factor of production of labor - a triple ownership structure. In this triple ownership structure:

• is the labor employer's creative ownership of his or her employment assets;
• the laborer's control over labor is limited to economic ownership (i.e., usufruct) of the labor result;
• and the third party becomes the legal owner of the labor compensation (i.e., the settlement for the work performed).

I can imagine that the concept of ‘legal owner’ in relation to ‘labor’ raises questions. Therefore, I will also briefly explain this combination of concepts. I will do so again using the common (dual) labor relations.

By hiring an employee, an employer becomes the de facto legal owner of its employee's work capability. This is because an employer has the right to determine what work his or her employees should perform where, when and how. Thus, in this case, the employee/employer is only creatively owner of his labor and the employer/worker is not only economically owner but also legally owner. Thus, the balance in the ownership of labor in this case tips over to the side of the employer/worker.

A ZZP-er can - just like an employee - sell his or her working assets, but usually a ZZP-er does not sell his or her working assets but the result of his or her labor or his or her labor performance. One could say that in the latter case, the ZZP-er remains the legal owner of his or her work capability. So the balance in the ownership of labor in this case tips over to the side of the labor employer.

It follows from the above that in the case of triple ownership of labor, the third party's function is not only to separate Labor and Income, but also to ensure the balance between the creative ownership of the labor employer on the one hand and the economic ownership of the labor taker on the other. This third party can do this by matching the needs of labor takers and the needs of labor employers - through proper consultation with both parties. In other words, the third party is a (social) balancing act.

But what are - in a general sense - the needs of employers and workers that can be matched through consultation in this balancing body?

With the labor performance that a laborer provides, he or she is (directly or indirectly) meeting the consumption needs of the laborer.

By receiving - instead of the labor employer - compensation for the labor service, the third party can meet the liquidation needs of the labor contractor. With the compensation received, the third party can then meet the income needs of the labor employer.

In today's labor relations, a labor employer is actually forced to be guided by his or her income need in relation to the laborer. When the third party meets the income need of the labor employer, the development need of the labor employer in relation to the labor taker can re-emerge. That is, the need to develop his or her talents and use them in a meaningful way to serve others. 

In other words, the essence of the function of the third party is to match, on the one hand, the (mental) developmental needs of the laborer's employer and, on the other hand, the (material) consumption needs of the laborer as well as possible. And thereby, on the one hand, to prevent the laborer - out of his consumption need - from exploiting the laborer's capacity for labor, and, on the other hand, to prevent the laborer - out of his development need - from providing a labor performance that the laborer does not need at all. 

But perhaps the third party itself has needs, which are fulfilled by meeting the income needs of labor employers on the one hand and the liquidation needs of labor buyers on the other? 

If these needs are indeed there, it is obvious that they are to be found in the sphere of legal life. After all, the developmental needs of the laborer are in the sphere of spiritual/cultural life, and the consumption needs of the laborer are in the sphere of economic life.

In the legal sphere, the principle of equality prevails. Meeting the income needs of the labor employer does justice to the sense of law that every person has an equal right to adequate food, clothing and shelter. However, how much income a labor employer needs to provide for himself and those he/she cares for may vary. Both from person to person and over time. Thus, the sense of justice does not demand that every labor provider receive an equal and fixed income, but that each labor provider receive a variable income to suit his or her varying needs.

In relation to the worker, there is a sense of justice that equal performance should also be rewarded equally. Regardless of the situation in which an individual laborer finds himself and the income needs he or she has in that specific situation. The third party can do justice to this sense of justice by charging laborers a so-called ‘market-compliant’ price for the labor services provided. 

Now that we have a picture of the third party's legal needs, it also becomes clear who or what this third party is. Indeed, the needs in the legal sphere are not individual needs, but community needs. In other words, the third party is ‘a body of cooperating people’ or ‘a labor community’ or - in terms of Economy Transformers - ‘a Partial Society.

By paying equal compensation for equal services, the laborer provides for one legal need of the labor community. And by settling for an income sufficient to meet the necessities of life for himself and those he/she cares for, the laborer meets the other legal need of the labor community.

And with the money that remains, when each of us does not - as usual - make up all-my-income-that-I-earn-with-my-work, collective capital can then be formed. And Jac can tell you more about that ;-).