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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on

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Speaker 1: iHeart Radio and welcome back to Coast to Coast George

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Speaker 1: and are with you. We've got a couple of guests

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Speaker 1: for you for the next couple hours. For the first half.

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Speaker 1: Right now, James Salzman joins us. James is a distinguished

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Speaker 1: professor of environmental Law with joint appointments at the UCLA

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Speaker 1: School of Law and the UCSB Brands School of the

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Speaker 1: Environment and he and his co author Michael Heller, who'll

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Speaker 1: join us at the half tonight, wrote a book called Mine,

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Speaker 1: How they hidden rules of ownership control our lives. James,

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Speaker 1: welcome to the program. This is a fascinating subject, it

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Speaker 1: really is. George, Thanks for having us. And when we

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Speaker 1: talk about ownership, what are we talking about exactly? Well,

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Speaker 1: ownership in visibly shapes every day of our lives, every minute.

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Speaker 1: These are the rules that determine who gets what and why.

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Speaker 1: They detern where you stand at the front of the

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Speaker 1: line or the back, where you live, what you drive,

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Speaker 1: where you park. Hundreds of times a day we encounter

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Speaker 1: the rules that decide who gets what. We don't really

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Speaker 1: think about it that way. I mean, it's no coincidence

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Speaker 1: that if you go around the world in every culture,

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Speaker 1: mine is one of the first words that baby speak. Right,

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Speaker 1: you go to playground, and what do you hear? Do

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Speaker 1: you hear? Mine? Mine? Mine? Mine? Exactly exactly. And one

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Speaker 1: of the things we show folks with this book is

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Speaker 1: that you know, you imagine two kids fighting over a shovel, right,

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Speaker 1: we hear mine, mind mind mind, right, But really they're

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Speaker 1: they're in a storytelling battle. One is saying, I head

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Speaker 1: it first, the other is saying, I'm holding on to

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Speaker 1: it now. And the stories they're telling really are first

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Speaker 1: in time in possessions. Possessions is nine tenths of the law.

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Speaker 1: And it turns out that they're just six stories that

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Speaker 1: we use and we've always used and always will use

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Speaker 1: to basically determine who gets what its ownership is a

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Speaker 1: storytelling battle. What got you and Michael to put together

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Speaker 1: the book Mine, Well, we both teach property. I do

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Speaker 1: it from the environmental perspective. Michael as it more from

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Speaker 1: the property perspective, and we're big fans of the book freaconomics,

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Speaker 1: and freaconomics really is teaching a very simple lesson which

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Speaker 1: is an incentives matter, but uses very clever stories to

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Speaker 1: do it right. What are sumer wrestlers cheat? What a

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Speaker 1: jug deithers live with their mother? But what preconomics does

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Speaker 1: so well is once you start to look for individual incentives,

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Speaker 1: the world makes a lot of sense. And it's the

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Speaker 1: exact same thing once you start to look at different

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Speaker 1: ways that we own things, something, things make a lot

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Speaker 1: of sense. Whether it's whether you can recline an airplane seat,

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Speaker 1: whether you can share an HBO password. All this comes

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Speaker 1: down as the different ways that we own things. On

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Speaker 1: Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, where the stores just

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Speaker 1: have these massive sales, so many people fight over ownership

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Speaker 1: of things. It's incredible. I mean they're pulling toys, they're

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Speaker 1: fighting over clothes. It's crazy. It is crazy, and it's

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Speaker 1: it's deep wired, right, it's hard wired. This goes way

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Speaker 1: back in evolutionary history. And one of the things I

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Speaker 1: found so interesting when I started looking for ownership go

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Speaker 1: back to the Garden of Eden. Right, that story is

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Speaker 1: all about ownership. Right, So God says to Adam and Eve,

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Speaker 1: you know, welcome the garden of Eden. May yourself at home,

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Speaker 1: act act like it's yours. Do you see that tree

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Speaker 1: over there? That's mine, don't touch, do not take the fruit?

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Speaker 1: And what do they take the fruit? And they know

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Speaker 1: it's not there in human history start and they're literally evicted. James,

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Speaker 1: you just mentioned airplanes. This is one of my pet peeves.

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Speaker 1: I fly a lot, and the pet peeve is the

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Speaker 1: person in front of you who reclines his chair. Is

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Speaker 1: the right to do that, of course, but it seems

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Speaker 1: like he's encroaching on my space. And you know, it

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Speaker 1: comes all the way back and it just visually doesn't

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Speaker 1: give you a lot of room. I don't know if

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Speaker 1: we have, if it's natural or not, but it looks

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Speaker 1: like we're cramped. Yes, George, this is super interesting, and

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Speaker 1: we use this story to open the book because it

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Speaker 1: reveals so much. So it turns out that you may

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Speaker 1: have seen this yourself, but there are a fair number

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Speaker 1: of fights that actually break out on airlines. Oh yeah, absolutely,

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Speaker 1: So what's going on? Right? So basically the person in

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Speaker 1: front they say, I've got the right to recline because

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Speaker 1: I have this button and allows me to recline my seat.

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Speaker 1: The other person, you know, who's trying to work in

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Speaker 1: their laptop and getting it crunched into them and saying no, no, no,

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Speaker 1: this is my space, right, So what's going on? Remember

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Speaker 1: I talked earlier about these six simple stories. Well, one

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Speaker 1: story of the person with the reclined button is using

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Speaker 1: is what we call the story of attachment, which is

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Speaker 1: it's mine because it's a task to something that I own,

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Speaker 1: the same reason you own minerals under your under your land.

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Speaker 1: And basically that person is saying, I can recline back.

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Speaker 1: I've got that right. Why else what I have the button.

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Speaker 1: The other person is using the possession story. I possessed

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Speaker 1: this space. When you lean into my space, you're trespassing.

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Speaker 1: So here's the thing. There are two things that are

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Speaker 1: really interesting about this. The first is we do a

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Speaker 1: lot of public speaking on this, and we'll pull the

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Speaker 1: audience and it sounds like you believe in the right

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Speaker 1: to her and actually actually should ask you to believe

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Speaker 1: in the right to recline or the right to defend

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Speaker 1: your knees, which gets you more angry. I believe in

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Speaker 1: the right to decline, but I don't think they should

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Speaker 1: because of the poor person in the back, because you're

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Speaker 1: a polite guy. So here's the thing. When we do surveys,

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Speaker 1: we find it splits almost fifty fifty, and USA Today

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Speaker 1: did a national poll and they actually found fifty fifty

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Speaker 1: and not a side can believe the other doesn't agree

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Speaker 1: with them. And what's going on here is each side

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Speaker 1: is claiming its own story. You're basically claiming the story

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Speaker 1: of attachment, and the folks behind you say you shouldn't recline.

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Speaker 1: They're claiming the story of possession. So that's the first

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Speaker 1: thing it's interesting. The second thing it's really interesting is

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Speaker 1: why is this Why is this happening now? Because you

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Speaker 1: may recall, you know, it used to be you didn't

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Speaker 1: have these fights breaking out right, we don't us to fight,

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Speaker 1: So now everybody's tense. It's crazy. Well it's it's more

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Speaker 1: than that. So who actually owns the seats. It's the

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Speaker 1: airlines and they're the ones who are creating this. So

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Speaker 1: so realize what's going on here. First of all, we

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Speaker 1: use the trade table differently. We use it now for

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Speaker 1: basically the home of the entertainment system and to work

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Speaker 1: on the laptop. You know, we used to use it

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Speaker 1: basically just eat rubber chicken. That's the first thing, so

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Speaker 1: it's more valuable. The second thing, this is where the

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Speaker 1: airlines come in. They have shrunk the space between seats.

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Speaker 1: It's called pitch ye thirty two thirty three inches in economy.

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Speaker 1: Now it's twenty seven twenty eight inches. Every extra inch

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Speaker 1: they save is enough to put an entirely new row back.

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Speaker 1: So airlines basically are making the space much much tighter

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Speaker 1: and the space is more valuable. And that's when the

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Speaker 1: sights are breaking out because we're basically competing over scarce resources.

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Speaker 1: And they're back now. They're putting people in the middle seats.

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Speaker 1: Now during COVID they stop that. Now they're back again. Absolutely,

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Speaker 1: think about what happens with the armrest and so with

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Speaker 1: the airlines are doing. It's a strategy we called deliberate ambiguity.

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Speaker 1: And essentially, when ownership is unclear right people people fight

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Speaker 1: over it. But the thing is the airlines could solve

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Speaker 1: this very easily. They could simply tell people there's a

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Speaker 1: right to recline. In fact, most airlines have that rule,

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Speaker 1: but they don't tell it right. And the reason is

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Speaker 1: they're selling the same space of the same wedge of

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Speaker 1: space twice, or why don't they put in nonreclinable seats.

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Speaker 1: They could do that, but some people like to recline.

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Speaker 1: It's you know, it's so basically why replace the seats?

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Speaker 1: And the other thing is no one's blaming the airlines,

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Speaker 1: so why should they? Right? The beauty of this strategy

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Speaker 1: is that the passengers blame themselves when it's the airlines

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Speaker 1: that have created this problem and profited and probably you know,

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Speaker 1: as there's all you think, well, heck, I'm going to

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Speaker 1: fly in economy plus or in business so I don't

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Speaker 1: have to deal with that. It's a brilliant business strategy

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Speaker 1: for the airlines. Now you had mentioned Netflix, and you're

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Speaker 1: absolutely right. If you subscribe to Netflix, I think you

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Speaker 1: have the right to like pick three or four TV

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Speaker 1: sets and you could literally give your password and use

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Speaker 1: your name to somebody in a different house and they

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Speaker 1: could be using it too. Yes, So this is this

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Speaker 1: is really interesting that we found as well. So HBO.

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Speaker 1: We were law professors and we ask our students how

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Speaker 1: many of you either share or know someone who shares

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Speaker 1: an HBO password in every single hand? And the audience

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Speaker 1: goes up. These are law students, George, this is illegal, right,

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Speaker 1: you know, wildly waving their hands. What's going on? So

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Speaker 1: Netflix and HBO they know exactly what you're doing. But

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Speaker 1: until recently, both of them have actually encouraged this activity.

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Speaker 1: They don't they don't tell us, but they encourage it.

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Speaker 1: Why would they This is tolerated theft. Why would they

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Speaker 1: possibly think it's okay for someone to take their product? Well,

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Speaker 1: the CEO got called Richard Plepler a few years ago,

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Speaker 1: was very candid about it. If he was ahead of HBO,

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Speaker 1: he said, we are in the business of creating video addicts.

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Speaker 1: In essense, the idea is the more people that share

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Speaker 1: the password, the more buzz you get shows and the

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Speaker 1: more future subscribers. So it's really interesting right now and

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Speaker 1: the model must work for them right Well, well, yes,

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Speaker 1: but here's what's interesting, and your listeners, I think we'll

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Speaker 1: pick up on this. Netflix has started to explore whether

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Speaker 1: they should stop this practice, stop this business strategy, and

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Speaker 1: so Netflix is actually running a beta right now. They're

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Speaker 1: running with this test to basically remind the viewers you

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Speaker 1: shouldn't share your passwords, and they haven't decided yet whether

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Speaker 1: to clamp down or not. HBO still tolerates this. Interesting.

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Speaker 1: The other thing is, you know, if your listeners go

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Speaker 1: Time Square, you know you can pick up a really

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Speaker 1: sweet Rolex for about ten bucks. Right, Obviously it's not

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Speaker 1: it's not a real ro it's not real. It's a

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Speaker 1: phony one, right. And you would think Rolex would hate this,

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Speaker 1: and they public publicly protest against it, But there are

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Speaker 1: a lot of business studies that actually show that of

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Speaker 1: the folks who are buying those fake Rolexes, they go

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Speaker 1: on to buy the real thing, right. And essentially what

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Speaker 1: they're doing is they're using the fake, the fake market

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Speaker 1: to build brand, the brand loyalty, and the idea is

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Speaker 1: wouldn't it be great to a real one later down

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Speaker 1: the road. That's fascinating, it really is. But when we're

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Speaker 1: kids at that young age, mind, mind, mind, what makes

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Speaker 1: us think everything's our possession? Well, we're hard wired to

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Speaker 1: to to be that way, right, I mean think about it.

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Speaker 1: You know when we came down from the trees, right,

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Speaker 1: and you know when we're living in an environment with

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Speaker 1: scarce resources. If if I don't get it, you will, right.

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Speaker 1: It really is hard wired. For instance, you know the

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Speaker 1: spring is coming around the countr tree. You walk around

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Speaker 1: and you hear this beautiful birds tripping. You know they're

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Speaker 1: not this is not a Disney film, right, They're not

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Speaker 1: saying what a lovely morning. If you could hear it,

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Speaker 1: if you can translate what they were saying, you would

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Speaker 1: hear them saying, hey, buddy, this is my territory. Back

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Speaker 1: off right. That's basically what they're saying. They're marking their territory.

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Speaker 1: We do the same things, right with the jacket on

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Speaker 1: the back of a chair or the towel on the beach.

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Speaker 1: This is something you know. It's basically it's a secret

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Speaker 1: language that we all speak. And just think for a

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Speaker 1: moment now, I think your listeners might enjoy this as well.

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Speaker 1: Think about all the sayings that we have for ownership.

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Speaker 1: They're a lot right possession of nine tenths of the law.

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Speaker 1: Find news keepers first come for a serve. My home

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Speaker 1: is my castle. This is how we're habituated from a

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Speaker 1: very young age to realize what it is to own things.

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Speaker 1: And if we don't have these rules of ownership, we're

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Speaker 1: going to basically kill ourselves a lot more than we

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Speaker 1: otherwise would because it fights over ownership. It's really remarkable.

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Speaker 1: Actually we can go in a day and keep our stuff.

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Speaker 1: Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every week night

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Speaker 1: at one a m. Eastern and go to Coast to

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Speaker 1: coast am dot com for more