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Consider 'ownership' as 'control' of a resource instead if it helps (control of access, of distribution, of use, etc.).The word has a lot of subjective baggage from our own culture and economic system that can cause confusion in these sorts of discussions. Whether you're talking about private or communal ownership, it's still just a form of ownership. Even when we talk of communal ownership, such as Hawaiian lands pre-Cook (actually, it's a pretty fascinating subject to read about, especially with how they wound up transitioning over a relatively short time and the protections they tried to build into that transition),[0] there's still some method of controlling access and use. That can be as simple as cultural norms that exemplified a sort of "don't be a jerk" attitude towards shared property that's widely accepted, or some sort of ruling authority that granted access, dictated acceptable usage, punished misuse, etc.

0. http://files.hawaii.gov/dcca/reb/real_ed/re_ed/ce_prelic/lan...



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