What are the key principles of David Rogers' great taking idea?
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Executive summary
David Rogers Webb’s “Great Taking” frames a deliberate, systemic plan by banking and central banking infrastructures to convert privately held assets into collateral for the financial system, using legal, technological and regulatory changes such as dematerialization, security entitlements, harmonization of rules and central clearing parties as its levers [1] [2]. The thesis warns that those tools — combined with crisis playbooks like targeted bank holidays and selective payouts to secured creditors — could be used to transfer vast quantities of private wealth to privileged financial actors, though critics dispute the intent and inevitability Webb attributes to these developments [2] [3].
1. Dematerialization: turning physical property into ledger entries
A cornerstone of Webb’s argument is that the shift from physical certificates and tangible property records to electronic book-entry systems (dematerialization) removed visible ownership and made assets manipulable via ledger constructs, enabling transfers and claims without direct physical seizure [1] [2]. Webb traces this technological shift as the opening move: dematerialization created layers of intermediaries and legal fictions (trust companies, custodians) that can be reinterpreted during crises to treat private assets as systemic collateral [1] [2]. Critics included in reviews argue dematerialization is a pragmatic modernization, not necessarily a conspiracy to confiscate assets, highlighting a clear alternative reading of the same facts [3].
2. Security entitlement: legal reclassification that obscures ownership
Webb emphasizes “security entitlement” — legal doctrines that distinguish beneficial owners from holders of record — as a mechanism that can render private property effectively claimable by banks because ownership is represented as an entitlement to securities held in omnibus accounts rather than a directly owned asset [1] [2]. The book claims this reclassification creates legal pathways for assets to be treated as surety for counterparties in systemic stress, thereby making them vulnerable to appropriation under certain legal regimes or bankruptcy priorities [2] [4]. The argument depends on reading complex securities law as deliberately enabling mass collateralization rather than merely reflecting modern financial intermediation [2].
3. Harmonization and collateral management: global rule‑setting as control
Webb points to international harmonization of rules, standardized collateral management practices and the rise of central clearing parties (CCPs) as structural consolidations that both increase interconnectedness and concentrate power — meaning a coordinated distress event could be exploited to enforce blanket treatment of collateral in ways that advantage central banks and top-tier creditors [2] [1]. The book warns harmonization makes shock transmission more efficient and central actors more capable of dictating outcomes in a crisis [2]. Others argue harmonization reduces counterparty risk and systemic instability, an intended design objective rather than a scheme for expropriation [3].
4. Crisis playbook: bank holidays, CCP failure and selective payouts
Webb draws historical precedent to outline a crisis playbook: selective closures (bank holidays), prioritizing secured creditors in insolvency (as seen in crisis-era legal maneuvers), and the possibility of CCP bankruptcies followed by payouts only to priority claimants could lawfully strip assets from secondary holders and redirect them upward to central authorities or favored banks [2] [5]. He hypothesizes that central bank tools such as CBDCs might later be used to reallocate liquidity with conditions attached, cementing control after the taking [1]. These are predictive scenarios based on selective readings of past crises; reviewers contest that the chain of inevitability Webb asserts is not universally accepted [3].
5. Scope, intent and critique: is this a planned heist or a warning about systemic risk?
Webb portrays the Great Taking as a long-planned design by entrenched financial interests to appropriate collateral at scale, asserting historical continuity from Depression-era confiscations to contemporary structures [2] [6]. Supporters find the analysis compelling given Webb’s industry background [7], while skeptics — including financial commentators — reject the interpretation that technical innovations like dematerialization were conspiratorial, framing them instead as efficiency and risk-management measures [3]. The reporting shows both the detailed mechanisms Webb identifies and meaningful counterarguments about motive and inevitability [1] [3].
6. What reporting can and cannot confirm from the sources
Available summaries, excerpts and reviews consistently outline Webb’s key principles: dematerialization, security entitlements, harmonization, CCPs, crisis tactics and the role of central banks/CBDCs in a post‑event reallocation [1] [2] [4]. What the sources do not settle is empirical proof that a coordinated, intentional global plan exists to execute the Great Taking exactly as Webb predicts; the materials include Webb’s interpretation and warnings and reviewers’ pushbacks but do not provide independent documentary evidence of a deliberate conspiratorial roadmap beyond legal and technical analyses [2] [3].