Common Wealth Canada
@commonwealthcanada.bsky.social
We're advancing practical solutions to housing, productivity, and affordability, by shifting taxes to land and sharing natural and publicly created wealth. commonwealth.ca
As Redfin Chief Economist Dr. Daryl Fairweather points out: why do valuable city lots sit empty as parking lots? Because property taxes often reward land speculation and penalize building. Land Value Tax flips that: tax the land, not the housing built on it.
The price of a roof shouldn't be your health. 🏠🚑 We need to shift taxes off of our paycheques and onto the value of the land. When we stop rewarding land speculation, we start prioritizing human life.
Boy Scouts of US founder supported the idea that we should tax nothing but land.
Norway's sovereign wealth fund reflects a shared belief that the value of nature is something owned in common. It's time Canadians shared this mindset of safeguarding, not squandering, our natural resource wealth.
Taiwan grew 11% last year on AI chips, and decided every resident should get a cut. Alaska has done the same with oil since 1982. Canada has resource wealth, land wealth, and a growing AI sector. What we don't have is a mechanism to share any of it.
"By taxing land rather than buildings, we can incentivize much-needed housing development... this approach facilitates a comprehensive solution to restore housing affordability." https://www.commonwealth.ca/blog/thestar-oped-want-real-action-on-housing-tax-the-land
so many housing policies, so little affordability
What if taxes rewarded building homes instead of leaving land vacant? That's the idea behind land value tax.
Land value rises from society's hard work. Tax land, not labour.
We could be worrying about better things than whether home prices are going up or down.
Canadian Youtuber About Here says growth creates windfalls for homeowners. But instead of letting them pocket all that new wealth (mostly land value), society should capture some of it back. This can fund housing/transit or replace harmful taxes.
I'm not a fan of this format in general, but I think @andrew-yang.bsky.social did a great job here of making it friendly versus adversarial and explaining why AI is going to have fewer winners than losers, and why universal basic income is so important as a foundation.
AI Realist vs 20 AI Optimists (ft. Andrew Yang) | Surrounded
YouTube video by Jubilee
youtu.be
LVT is about fixing incentives to reward, not punish builders. "If the region's jurisdictions taxed land more so than improvements to it, denser and more walkable neighborhood development would be more lucrative than surface parking, vacant lots, and sparse development."
South Korea's UBI grew the economy and gave workers a hand up.
UBI from sovereign wealth funds, like Alaska's dividend, is elegant and practical. If AI does the work, the public should get dividends. Dr. Tony Annett, economist, author of Cathonomics, ex-IMF
Ireland's basic income for artists returned more than it cost, so they made it permanent. Now Scotland and South Korea are following its lead.
Alaska's UBI from oil is a leading example of sharing common wealth.
Alberta wants to build up their Heritage Fund to $250-400B by 2050. The right thing to do is pay everyone Alaska-style dividend cheques, for a very simple reason: it creates the missing link between citizens and their rights & duties as stewards of a shared natural inheritance.
What would the world be like if we had common wealth dividends? A world with more personal freedom and opportunity. Freedom to take career risks, entrepreneurial risks, volunteer, care for loved ones.
No amount of building new homes will reverse this
"Public money creates private land value." Who should get richer when a government builds a metro line: the public that paid for it, or whoever happened to own the land next to the station?
Another UBI skeptic flipped because of AI--a contributor to the American Conservative and New York Post "For years, I opposed Universal Basic Income, firmly and reflexively... That position no longer survives contact with reality."
In the future, it's likely that even agents will have UBI to fund tokens for survival. Sounds familiar -- now do humans first.
Spokane is looking at land value tax. "The goal is to encourage growth, lower bills for some taxpayers, stabilize tax burdens for everyone and disincentivize undesirable behavior such as speculating on land and allowing buildings to fall into disrepair."
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.
"Society increasingly resembles aristocracy" Government report shows how social mobility dies by 2040: —inheritance the only way to get ahead —owning home not realistic for many —value of labour killed by AI To restore the link between wealth & work, tax land not work.
All classical economists including the godfather of capitalism, Adam Smith, saw land as a distinct factor of production. Many believed we should tax land not work. It's time to make this mainstream again. It would make our economy more productive & fair.
