We’re not aware we’re holding such a picture of reality, until someone like Andy Law stands up to stockholders and says, I am not your property. Such gestures are reminiscent of the founding fathers standing up to Great Britain and saying, America is no longer your property. What seems solid melts under challenge. In the heat of confrontation, the notion of “owning” human beings slips away — like ice melting. Or like an incantation fading, once we have broken its spell. “

Correction: Once the old picture of reality melts away, as it did for the American revolutionaries, the battle has only begun.