We Pay to Remain on the Land

When the estate-owning elite began clearing villages, they didn't need to use force.

They began with documentation.

Boundaries were surveyed. Rights were recorded. Land that had been used for generations was translated into title. What had been understood became something that had to be proven.

The language was orderly. Sensible. Forward-looking and sober.

The land didn'tmove. The definition of who belonged to it did.

By the time fences appeared, the logic had already settled.

I pay for Claude.
I pay for ChatGPT.
I pay for Midjourney.
I pay for Kive.
I pay for Lovable.

The tools are good.One person can now produce at a scale that would have required a small team not long ago.

The acceleration feels like progress.

What is less visible is where that capacity resides.

Creative work once depended on tools that occupied your own space. Machines. Licenses. Books. Software installed and left alone. They wore down slowly. Their limits were mechanical.

Now the instruments of thought exist elsewhere. Access is renewed monthly. Access is structured by tier. Access can be altered without consultation.

Nothing is seized because nothing is owned.

You maintain continuity. You maintain eligibility.

If payment stops, velocity stops. And this is not dramatic. It is efficient. It works.

Capability rests inside systems you cannot inspect and infrastructure you do not control. Pricing can shift. Terms can shift. You adapt.

You still create.
You still compete.
You still feel ahead.

The estate-owning elite framed enclosure as rational management. Output increased. Order tightened. Wealth consolidated. The mechanism required no spectacle. Only compliance with a new definition of ownership.

We are fluent.
We are productive.
We can write.

And each month, we pay for the privilege of being colonised.