Home ownership and wealth.

It is claimed that "home ownership creates wealth." This is not correct.

A house is wealth. Building it creates wealth.

Owning the house sequesters that wealth in the hands that are holding title to it.

A mortgage enabling an owner to buy the house creates debt, the repayment of which extracts a porton of the surplus created by the productive economy into the hands that issued the mortgage.

Reselling the house also creates debt, the repayment of which extracts a porton of the surplus created by the productive econony into hands issuing a mortgage and transfers control of the wealth created in the form of a house when the house was built into the hands of the house's new owner.

Buying and selling houses does not create wealth. It increases the price of houses.

Building cooperatively owned, not-for-profit housing also creates wealth, the same as building any house creates wealth: the wealth is the house. Who occupies coop housing is determined by criteria other than who is willing to pay the most money for the privilege.

Everyone engaged in the construction of cooperative housing is paid with the same legal tender as everyone engaged in building for-profit housing. By whom builders and trades are paid makes no difference to them, assuming the rates of pay are the same.

Government creates liquidity to finance the construction of coop housing the same way issuers of mortgage debt create liquidity for purchasers of houses in the for-profit market: out of the blue.

And government injects liquidity into the economy to finance construction of coop housing in precisely the same way as accumulators of private capital inject liquidity into the economy to finance for-profit housing construction: it is loaned.

Both government and private sector loans to construct housing are paid off in exactly the same way: as monthly payments by the housing's occupants.

The differences are: whether a public or private entity extends the loan, how much interest the issuer of the loan demands, who holds title to the housing after it has been built, and what rules govern transfer of title to or changes in occupancy of that housing, including whether transfer of title or changes in occupancy are for-profit or not-for-profit transactions.

There is more than one way to skin a cat. A tiny minority who control enormous quantities of money skinning the rest of society for a roof over one's head is the worst imaginable way.