Find us on social
Common wealth for the common good.
Common Wealth is a project that promotes policies rooted in the idea that value arising from what nature or society creates, rather than individual effort, should be collected to benefit all citizens directly — through dividends and lower taxes.
Doing so would fix the incentives driving our housing and cost of living crises, while stewarding our resources for the benefit of future generations. The goal of this project is to expand our common wealth in order to create a society where progress benefits everyone.
Leading supporters of building common wealth
-
Peter Barnes, entrepreneur, author and originator of "Cap-and-dividend"
“All persons have a right to income from wealth we inherit or create together. That right derives from our equality of birth... It consists of assets created not by individuals or corporations but by nature or society as a whole... paying dividends from wealth we own together is a practical, market-based way to assure the survival of a large middle class.”
-
Carys Roberts, Executive Director of the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR)
“Everyone should collectively own a portion of [a country's] wealth. This would be held in one big fund so we can invest it sensibly so that everyone benefits fairly from the returns… By owning wealth in common, the fund would act as a force for economic equality by distributing returns to capital more widely.”
-
Andrew Yang, entrepreneur, former US Presidential Candidate and founder of the Forward Party
“Here is something you never hear when a company pays a dividend: 'What are the shareholders going to do with the money?' We are the owners and shareholders of this society… We need to take the bounty of the 21st century economy and return it to the people.”
-
Professor Mariana Mazucato, economist and Founding Director of the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose
“A citizen’s dividend allows the proceeds of co-created wealth to be shared with the larger community—whether that wealth comes from natural resources that are part of the common good or from a process, such as public investments in medicines or digital technologies, that has involved a collective effort.”
-
Professor Guy Standing, economist and Co-founder of Basic Income Earth Network
"Throughout history the commons have been a vital part of social income, providing a ‘right to subsistence’… We need to take back the commons, revive their principles of sharing, solidarity and universality, and ensure that commoners – ‘we, the people’ – are properly compensated for any loss.”
-
Jens Stoltenberg, Former Prime Minister of Norway and NATO Secretary General
“The natural resources in the ground, that’s something we own in common… we believe in the market, we believe in competition, we believe in open economy. But we believe that the extra rent connected to natural resources shall be something which is in the common ownership of the people”
-
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI and former President of Y Combinator
“The value of land appreciates because of the work society does around it: the network effects of the companies operating around a piece of land, the public transportation that makes it accessible, and the nearby restaurants, coffeeshops, and access to nature that makes it desirable… it’s fair for that value to be shared with the larger society”
-
Frank de Jong, environmentalist, author and first leader of the Green Party of Ontario
“Funding government programs by capturing the community-generated, unearned income that accrues to desirable finite assets increases economic efficiency, eliminates poverty and unemployment, halts sprawl, conserves resources and reduces pollution.”
-
Brent Ranalli, Research Scholar at Ronin Institute and author of "Common Wealth Dividends: History and Theory"
“There are some things in this world, like land and natural resources, that ought to be considered our common heritage, and that those who own or control these common-heritage resources owe some compensation to the rest of us who are excluded from their use.”
-
Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Laureate in Economics and former Chief Economist of the World Bank
“Most of the increase in the value of wealth is an increase in the value of land… A tax on the return to land, and even more so, on the capital gains from land, would reduce inequality and, by encouraging more investment into real capital, actually enhance growth.”