These two economic worldviews, of prosperity gained through individual accumulation and prosperity gained through sharing of the commons, underpin the history of colonization in this country. The whole enterprise of dispossession and assimilation of the original peoples was designed to eradicate the notion of land as a source of belonging and to replace it with the idea that land is nothing more than a source of belongings. This required a narrowing of the definition of well-being, from common wealth to individual wealth, from abundance to scarcity.
