Ownership is the only form of power that cannot be revoked, voted away, defunded, downsized, algorithm-changed, or culturally appropriated. Without ownership, our labor becomes someone else’s wealth, our creativity becomes someone else’s profit, our communities become someone else’s investment portfolio, and we remain a consumer class trapped inside an economy built to extract from us, not empower us.

Spending is not the same as owning; neither is it progress to give all of our time, resources, skills, and talent to corporations we do not own. During slavery, it was clear that the slave was a slave. Today, enslavement is branded as success, but the role is the same as it was in the 1800s. It only looks different because you are given the choice to decide to which plantation you will belong. No wonder when you choose an industry, they call it a field.