Thinking of boundaries, from the Berlin wall, to walls and fences
round ghettos past and present to lines drawn on maps naming
countries' borders, I wonder who owns the land and if they should.
The earth at one time
had no boundaries. People did not lay claim to land or wage war to
protect it and 21% of the land of the world was not owned
by just 15 people (
Business Insider). And any one person did not own a sixth of the land of the world.
In case anyone wonders why Britain politically punches above its weight, it's not just a hangover from the Empire when in 1923 it covered a quarter of the earth (
Historical Atlas of British Empire). Today Queen Elizabeth II of England is the
'legal owner of about 6.6 billion acres of land, one-sixth of the
earth's land surface' (
New Statesman).
The world is 123
billion acres and the worlds land is 37 billion acres according to
New Statesman 'a notional four acres available for every man, woman
and child in the predicted 2050 world population of nine billion.'
John Steinbeck wrote in
Grapes of Wrath, about our lack of learning from history and the
eventual and inevitable outcome which held true in his time and which
holds true today:
'And the great owners,
who must lose their land in an upheaval, the great owners with access
to history, with eyes to read history and to know the great fact:
when property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away. And that
companion fact: when a majority of the people are hungry and cold
they will take by force what they need. And the little screaming fact
that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen
and knit the repressed. The great owners ignored the three cries of
history. The land fell into fewer hands, the number of dispossessed
increased, and every effort of the great owners was directed at
oppression. The money was spent for arms, for gas to protect the
great holdings, and spies were sent to catch the murmuring of revolt
so that it might be stamped out. The changing economy was ignored,
plans for the change ignored; and only means to destroy revolt were
considered, while the causes of revolt went on.' (Steinbeck, 1939, Chapter 19,
p. 249)
At that time it was discrimination based on race, now it is discrimination based on national origin. Should we have laws that enforce discrimination? 
