Andro Linklater quote

"At one period in my life, I believed passionately in...egaltarian ideals, and lived for longer than was sensible on communes in the United States and Europe, farming unproductive steeply sloping fields locked away in the mountains unwanted by their original owner. The experience offered a salutory lesson in understanding how ownership of the earth shapes the way society is organized. The most attractive qualities of a primitive commune, sharing the labor and the rewards, turned out to be its most destructive. It was not the group, but the individual who actually plowed the field, dug the ditch, milked the goats, and made the granola. Over time, it became obvious that some performed these tasks better, or more slowly, or more lazily, than others, and so the tasks either had to be organized with rigid efficiency to spread the burden fairly, or... dissensions... boiled up and tore the community apart.... Far from being able to dispense with government, equal ownership entailed a surprising intensity of organization and policing of personal foibles." Andro Linklater, 2014, Owning the Earth: the Transforming History of Landownership. London, Verso.