Common Wealth Canada

"This isn't about socialism. This is about proper capitalism. If you've invested in something, surely you want access to it." — Economist Mariana Mazzucato on why the public should not only share the risks of innovation, but the rewards too.

B.C. could eliminate taxes on income, property, transfer, and SVT with a single tax on land value. It could leave most households ahead and make the tax system much fairer.

Greece's former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis says publicly created wealth is being privatized at scale, which could be paying us dividends instead. "We are producing capital collectively but only Google gets the profits."

"All the commons, all the royalties from those commons need to go into the [Alaska] Permanent Fund… because it's ours." Canada's vast natural resources should be managed the same way. We should be using it to fund dividends for all Canadians.

One of the best videos ever made on how land value tax could help address the housing crisis. By @bcgeu.bsky.social

"Land. That's where the money is." It's time to stop taxing income from work more than land.

"The uncomfortable truth is that Canada's high home prices are a deliberate policy choice. Our system encourages housing as an investment rather than a basic affordable need." — John Pasalis, President of Realosophy Realty

How to unf**k the economy This finance expert says tax land. Land rents are effectively a tax on the next generation and workers. We should AXE THE TAX on young people by sharing land value better. This is how to unf**k Canada

"Canada has built an economy where the best way to get rich isn't to invent create or build anything, it's to own houses and wait for prices to rise" "Money from work is taxed higher than money from owning homes" Imagine a housing minister saying this

"Those who are taking from the commons, who are making profits from our commons, should compensate the commoners. And those who are polluting the commons, diminishing our commons, should be compensating those who are suffering as a consequence." — Guy Standing

Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel calls the US, UK and Canada a "Georgist real estate catastrophe". A giant wealth transfer from younger/working class to older/landowners. He supports taxing land (over other things) to fix housing and the economy.

Broadcast spectrum revenues "could and arguably should be distributed as dividends". - Brent Ranalli, author of Common Wealth Dividends But instead of being paid, Canadians are paying spectrum oligopolies.

At the root of our housing crisis is the collective desire to treat homes as an investment, not just a place to live. How do we turn that around?

We have 2 markets for homes that are fundamentally at odds: 1) to live in and 2) to get rich. This is driving prices way beyond the need for living.

Jon Stewart: "Capital is king and labor is devalued." Kyla Scanlon said capital can give labor a voice and an equity stake. Don't forget land. We should shift taxes from income to land value and broaden capital ownership through social wealth funds that pay dividends.

Workers are overtaxed and 'double-billed': they pay tax on income, which funds public goods that raise their rent. The late economist Fred Foldvary said this is a major cause of income inequality and why we should tax land instead of wages.

The greatest conflict of interest: 95% of Canadian MPs own property, 40%+ are landlords. "They definitely don't want the price to go down because they need the money." Nobody in office is saying it: homes can't both be good investments and affordable.

"We should have a shift from taxing earned incomes to taxing wealth and ecological invasions of our commons, and thereby build up a Commons Fund from which we could pay a basic income." - Guy Standing

Jeff Bezos: "The bottom half workers pay 3% of all taxes – it should be zero" There is a much better option than taxing working people. If the goal is fairness, start with land. It benefits from society's productivity without contributing back.

Toronto landlord who owns 30,000 houses explains why young people don't want homes. Remember, your income is taxed way more than their land profits.

"UBI seems to be effective...I don't need it to be perfect, I just need people not to starve." - George Stroumboulopoulos

One Aussie says what all Canadian politicians won't. "As more of the population bought into housing as a wealth-building tool, price increases became not only inevitable, but politically desirable." Can you imagine an elected official saying this?

There are 2 markets for homes: 1) for living 2) for wealth creation These 2 are fundamentally at odds. Homes can't both be affordable and great investments.

"There has been a plunder of the commons... and they've been turned into sources of huge rental income. That is illegitimate, that is unjust, that has no moral principle justifying what's been happening and we should be very angry." — Guy Standing

We could virtually eliminate income tax for Canadians if we better taxed land and resource rents instead. Instead, working families are getting the snot taxed out of them while rents rise.

"My paycheck goes straight to rent -- there's nothing left." How many Canadians see 50-100% of their income get sucked up by land rents and income taxes? We should untax work, and shift taxes to the rental value of land.

Paying everyone dividends from wealth we all have a moral claim to - whether that's natural resources, social wealth funds, or AIs trained on our data - is how we achieve Keynes' vision of 20-hour workweeks. It's how we achieve a Star Trek economy.

The public has funded many technologies that today fuel massive private sector rents (excess profit). Economist Mariana Mazzucato believes we should better share this co-created wealth, through policies like citizen's dividends.

UBC's Patrick Condon has 3 solutions to the housing crisis, and it's all about land. 1. Stop using tax dollars to boost demand even more. 2. Capture land value to benefit the public, not speculators. 3. Use that value to build affordable housing.

This realtor identified the right problem: land as a long-term investment. He circles around the solution, but never quite lands on it though. Land value tax solves this (replace taxes on income and building.)

"We have enough flippin' tax" Yes, on things that make society better and more productive, like work and building homes. We should shift those taxes to land value instead.

You've heard of universal basic income. What about universal basic capital? Billionaire Nicolas Berggruen says it's how we tackle inequality and give citizens a stake in a nation's success. "As opposed to taxing the robots, why not own the robots?"

BC land value "increased by over $1 trillion over a decade. It tripled." — Paul Finch, President of BC General Employees' Union This is the largest transfer of public to private wealth happening before our eyes.

Canada should have a sovereign wealth fund that pays dividends to all and invests for future generations. It's how we leverage our nation's advantages in natural resources, technology, and finance to build common wealth for all Canadians.

When you hear housing crisis, think land crisis.

It's completely absurd that a city like Toronto has so much low-density housing around transit. The incentives are all backwards. It should be more profitable, not less, to build & maintain homes than to hold land underused.

Adam Smith, the godfather of capitalism, strongly believed that we should tax land, not workers. Why tax what people have earned? We should tax what people have not earned. That would encourage more housing and make our economy work better.

Our biggest challenges in housing, poverty, and productivity stem from our relationship to land. No policy will make homes affordable or end poverty without making land a worse long-term investment.

Which future do we want?

Would you vote for a policy that makes homes more affordable, but noone could profit much from rising home prices? This is the trade-off we need to ask for future generations.

Economists on the left and right agree that the fairest tax of all is NOT on what you earn from work or building homes, but on what you don't earn from rising land value.