The Goose and the Common

An English folk song about inequality and the enclosure of the commons, dating back to an 18th-century poem. It’s hard to imagine now, but there was a time when a great deal more land was held in common for the benefit of the community. Public lands for hunting, pastoral needs, and agriculture were fundamental to how communities functioned. In England, beginning in the 12th century, but accelerated from the 16th century forward, land became privatized. This was a death by a thousand cuts: Between 1604 and 1914 over 5,200 individual acts enclosing public land were passed. The same short-sighted philosophies that hastened the privatization of land in England were repeated on Native lands here in the U.S. by European colonizers. Suffice to say, we will not survive as a species unless we reverse this way of treating the planet and each other. Full stop. Lyrics: They hang the man and flog the woman Who steals the goose off the common But leave the greater villain loose Who steals the common from off the goose CHORUS The law demands that we atone When we take things we do not own But leaves the lords and ladies fine Who takes things that are yours and mine Who takes things that are yours and mine The poor and wretched don’t escape If they conspire the law to break This may be so but they endure Those who conspire to make the law CHORUS The law locks up the man or woman Who steals the goose from off the common But geese will still a common lack Until they go and steal it back