🌍 Commons, Not Conglomerates: Variable Taxation as a Guide Toward Communal Stewardship
In a post-growth economy, we don’t abolish value — we redirect it. And one of the most powerful tools to do that is already in our hands: taxation.
Not as punishment, but as encouragement. Not extraction, but direction. Steuern steuern. Taxes guide. The Fork in the Road: A New Corporate Decision Tree
In this vision, companies are not punished for existing — they’re given clear choices:
🏢 Keep everything proprietary → high taxes, strict dividend obligations to workers and customers, limited exemptions
🧩 Open source under permissive licenses → moderate taxation, easier access to cooperative grants and repair economies
🔄 Go full copyleft and commonize core IP → minimal or zero taxation, eligibility for infrastructure support and community stewardship programs
The point isn’t to make ownership illegal — it’s to align incentives with societal benefit. Rewarding the Act of Giving
When companies freely share the blueprints of their creativity — the source code, the designs, the protocols — they’re doing more than making things “open.” They’re investing in the future capacity of others.
And that future will remember. Through lowered taxes, public support, and direct reciprocity, we create a system where giving becomes the smartest economic move — not just the moral one.
This isn’t charity. It’s enlightened self-interest within a web of solidarity. The 100% Inheritance Tax on Wealth-Generating Assets
As outlined in 🧬 Inheritance as a Political Act, value-generating assets (like IP, shares, or machinery) cannot be hoarded and passed down indefinitely. They return to the commons upon death — unless they’ve already been commonized during one’s life.
In that sense, variable taxation becomes a choice:
Hoard now, give everything up later.
Or share while you live — and be celebrated, supported, and remembered as a builder of the commons.
And when you share early, society pays it forward: in your final payday, the commons buy back your contribution — and you’re free to enjoy your castles, cars, or canvases without guilt or legacy debt.
This is the moral architecture of a give economy — not built on guilt or coercion, but on deliberate, collective design.
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