Creating a Capitalist
When I was younger, like a little kid younger, my family owned things. My dad was a partner in a car dealership and we lived in our second house that my folks owned. (With the help of the bank of course) My grand parents owned a house in a well healed Toronto neighbourhood and they also had a hobby farm. An uncle had owned a store in Orangeville and had what seemed the biggest house I’ve ever seen. Even my NDP uncle owned two properties, one being a pond front cottage.
I was on the deed of my first property when I was in my 20’s in my second house before I was 30. A piker compared to some of my friends, a buddy in University started buying income properties at 22. One of my high school friends owned a house and a business when he was in his 20’s. We all owned cars, I also thought owning expensive stereo’s was a plan.
As an owner of property I have benefitted greatly over the years from the relentless increase in value. For most of my adult life the value of property has climbed, occasional setbacks have happened, but overall a continuing march forward has happened. This march forward has afforded my family a reasonably comfortable lifestyle. Today we live in a beautiful home that is mortgage free. We own properties in the US that are mortgage free.
Why have property two to one Canada vs the United States? The United States have the right to property. Government cannot just take your property away without due process or without proper compensation in the event of an imminent domaine action. In Canada we have no such rights as are being evidenced in British Columbia where the BC supreme court has ruled that native property claims supersede any fee simple property ownership by non natives. For folks in BC and other provinces where treaty claims are non existent this means that the land under your building may not be actually yours even though you have a deed.
A friend was recently in Cuba and while eating at the hotel dining room was chatting with one of the staff. This Cuban said something that chilled my friend to the bone. When describing the conditions for the retired folks in the country which include a state pension and food subsidy he pointed out that the subsidy is 25 pesos a month and a bag of rice and one of beans. Inflation halved the value of the pension while they were in Cuba. That’;s bad enough but what chilled my friend was the statement that it was difficult for the younger populace of Cuba to feel empathy for the elderly as they were the ones who voted this government.
Cuba is in the end stages of the fall of socialism. The only thing holding back the next revolution is the lack of guns. Private citizens are not allowed guns in Cuba, only the police and militia. Control of the citizenry comes from the fear of dying from the government and its bullets without the ability to fight back. But fighting back will happen when the fear of dying from government action is balanced by dying from no food or opportunity the likelihood that someone will attack the police and take their weapons becomes pretty high.
So how do you get to the place where the people hate their elderly for creating this situation. What conditions could precede such a catastrophic failure of society that ushering in a political solution so antithetical to the growth of humanity is the right answer? The answer is simple. If you have nothing to lose why not try something different. If capitalism is not providing you with the most basic item of value which s property then you do not have anything to lose when a ‘prophet’ such as Mamdani tells you he will tax the ‘rich’ and their property that is excluding you from housing stability.
A captive growing rental populace with no opportunity to buy property is ripe for revolution. A government pied piper telling you that a right to fair housing exists and that the government will ensure that those bad property owners will pay makes for a great message. For good measure add in a court saying it was never their right to that property anyway and several things start to happen. People and businesses stop buying property because it becomes too risky. As the result property values drop which eventually will not support the loans against them causing bankruptcies and further crashing valuations.
Ownership of property underpins most of our society, crashing that while exploding the rental class can only create further issues as renters do not have funds or desire to join the ownership class. So the government or huge financial companies like Blackrock or State Street which are quasi government organ anyway just keep growing until a government is voted in that will take away all property. And if they have taken away all means of resistance very quickly Canada becomes Venezuela.
The property owning class is what keeps us safe. A government that does not encourage this cannot be trusted as they are not working in the best interests of its citizenry. Joe Biden loved to say, ‘What good is an AR15 when the government has a tank?’ True, but a government that needs to roll tanks against its own people has already lost the battle. Guns are not only a means to defend yourself, they are also representative of property rights. And as I have already mentioned, in Canada we do not have the right to own property.
Given all this Canada’s future looks kind of bleak. A concerted effort to move people out of rentals and into their own property is key to stemming the rise of socialism within the ranks of the young. Will a government run by a leader of the international cabal make this a priority? So far we have not seen any of this from our current leadership. And if, as in New York City, the rental class keep voting against the ownership class, we are not likely to see change.