I was doing a search over a month ago, can't remember what it was , but I stumbled across the first verses of an English folk poem, then found the rest of it. In the 1720s, the Enclosure Act allowed the English gentry to fence off the Commons, forced poor farmers off the land, privatizing the Commons. Some of the 1000s of displaced peasants moved to the cities to get whatever jobs they could, others migrated to America.
Considering the Public Lands Transfer movement, the Republican Party platform plank and Trump's many billionaire club choices for cabinets, some of which are vehemently opposed to what it is they may be put in charge of, I thought I would post this to show how easy it was for them to usurp, carve up and privatize The Commons.
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose off the common
But leaves the greater villain loose
Who steals the common from the goose
The law demands that we atone
When we take things we do not own
But leaves the lords and ladies fine
Who take things that are yours and mine
The poor and wretched don't escape
If they conspire the law to break
This must be so but they endure
Those who conspire to make the law
The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common
And geese will still a common lack
Till they go and steal it back
Protect our "common" public lands.