3 ms·

People have roots, man. If somebody would have tried to kick my Grand-x father off his homestead in Scotland, he'd have shoed them away with the blunt end of an

by fluxic 9y ago

People have roots, man. If somebody would have tried to kick my Grand-x father off his homestead in Scotland, he'd have shoed them away with the blunt end of an axe. And yet when it's capitalism rather than war that displaces people from their homesteads, it's lower-class stubbornness to blame? Why should money entitle people to live in certain places, rather than history? You can argue both sides.

wallawe 9y ago
Your grandfather owned the land. These people do not.
- dcre 9y ago
  That may be an explanation, but it's not a justification. Why don't these people own the land they live on? Keep asking why a couple more times.
  - RestlessMind 9y ago
    Because we tried a bunch of ways to allocate lands over the course of human history. The current system (where you pay money, acquire it peacefully and the government backs your "property rights" with all the guns) seems the best among alternatives (like violence, ceding it to people who live somewhere for X years etc). Do you have a better alternative to allocate land (or any other asset)? Please share so that we can discuss.
    - dcre 9y ago
      Public housing works quite well in Vienna.[1] But my point was not necessarily that no one should own land. Another interpretation of my question — "Why don't these people own the land they live on?" — would be, why isn't there land around that they can afford to buy and give themselves security? And that has various types of answers, some related the kinds of opportunity in the economy that would give them more income, some about how we can change the supply of housing. Here are some more developed thoughts on the subject from someone more expert than I am: [2] [1] https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/case-for-public-housing-vienna-chicago https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/case-for-pub... [2] https://danielkayhertz.com/2017/05/11/what-is-a-left-approach-to-housing-in-2017/ https://danielkayhertz.com/2017/05/11/what-is-a-left-approac...
      - Kalium 9y ago
        I find the argument in favor of sunset towns in your second link rather disturbing. The article about Vienna shows that the forces of supply and demand work very well, given an adequate supply. That seems very instructive.
- fluxic 9y ago
  Well many of the people displacing residents don't "own" the land either. They can just afford crazier rents. The distinction between whether someone is renting or owning has little bearing on where someone considers "home". See: entitlements people feel about going back to "homelands" in the Middle East, or to Europe after the war. These are not people that owned land, and yet we still feel morally responsible to help them return to their original homelands.
  - RestlessMind 9y ago
    No, I don't think it has much to do with morality. Its just that some peoples won the wars and hence could return to their homeland. Do you think Jews could have settled in Israel had they lost the fight in 1948? Or Germans would have been expelled from east of Oder had they won WW2? Even Hongkong had to be ceded back to China only after China became powerful enough to leave no other alternative. Do you think UK would have given back Hongkong if China was as weak as, say, Argentina (see: Falklands war)? Ultimately, land ownership (or its euphemisms like "homes" or "property rights") can only be backed by monopoly on violence, otherwise known as Governments, in that area.
jimduk 9y ago
I agree with your sentiment, but historically your Grand-x father potentially got sold out in the Highland Clearances by his clan leader and then emigrated to Canada/US. This made way for sheep (lots of Scotland is still relatively underpopulated) and the head of the clan probably blew the money on a town-house in London. People have roots, but they often get pulled out. See John Prebble - the Highland Clearances 1963 - ISBN-13: 978-0140028379 "‘Mr Prebble tells a terrible story excellently. There is little need to search further to explain so much of the sadness and emptiness of the northern Highlands today’ The Times.
- fluxic 9y ago
  Historically, this is exactly what happened. I'm just saying—it's a morally repugnant thing to happen, and it shouldn't be any less morally repugnant whether it's an entitled capitalist techie kicking my grandfather out of his house, a swindling clan leader, or some imperialist with an (albeit smalller) axe to grind. Coercion is coercion.
IkmoIkmo 9y ago
I did mention that. Again, I had to leave my own hometown too. And yes, we've argued, just like every major city, with history vs money. But at the end of the day, you're not entitled to live in the 0.01% richest square mileage because you were born there, or lived there a few decades. That's akin to birthrights. Now you can live there, if you can afford it. Affordability is a large spectrum. For example, for years I spent about 50% of my rent there, and I had a great quality of life, I liked it. But at some point, especially if you want to buy a house, get kids, reduce risk of total financial collapse the moment your income dips, etc, that's no longer affordable. The solution for me was to move to a cheaper area. In tech, wages vary quite wildly, but most people with ordinary jobs roughly earn the same. Facebook employs 17 thousand people. I don't really care much about them, relatively speaking. Walmart employs 2.3 million. I care about that number, relatively, loads more, as it concerns lots of people. Walmart salaries are pretty much the same across the country with little variance. So it just makes sense, from a quality of life perspective, for you and your family, to move to an at least somewhat affordable location. That doesn't mean sorting for price and picking the lost spot, there's lots inbetween. Lots of semi-expensive cities that can still be affordable. But SF? Come on. If you make $25k a year and have a family, that's just irresponsible. And if people need help moving, we should facilitate that. What else is the solution at scale? Giving birthrights? Giving million dollar subsidies to poor people so they can buy a 1 bedroom apartment in SF? There's ACTUAL huge issues that demands our government's resources. Look, if you live in an affordable city and can't make it on your own, need partial or full help, you should get all the help you need. But all these poor, but otherwise employable people with a decent brain and a decent body, who work hard but choose to live in a place among the richest on the planet... that makes no sense. In the same way I don't buy a BMW, or go to the four seasons, or pick the most expensive restaurant. At the end of the day, we need to pick our spending patterns based on our earnings for everything in life, living area included, and living in SF like some people do today is for many (not all) a (bad) choice. And I'm all for shifting the wealth, progressive tax rates, helping parents with daycare, in every city, I've always voted for those programmes. But we're talking about people trying to live in a city where a tiny home costs $1m, with a minimum wage income. You'd need programs that take 10x the resources that our government affords to helping people in other cities. I mean just extend the argument to the extreme... if all of the 200 million working Americans suddenly wanted to live in say Portland for some significant emotional bond... what would happen. Well there'd be homes for 10 million. The homes would skyrocket in price. There'd be jobs for say 20 million. So you'd have 200 million people offering their manhours for a tiny amount of jobs, and the wages would approach zero. You'd have affordability in the city crash, because rent and wages move in completely opposite directions at the speed of light. The solution then isn't for companies nor governments to pay/subsidise ever more than the market rate to a few million, while the rest are completely fucked. Nor is the solution to give a few people a birthright lottery ticket. The solution is for people to not choose to all live in Portland. SF is a bit like that, much less extreme. Affordability is dying, and the long-term solution probably is that some people improve their quality of life moving to places with 25% less wages and 50% lower expenses, and for the remainder to see their wages increase due to a drop in labour supply.

by fluxic 9y ago

wallawe 9y ago

Your grandfather owned the land. These people do not.

dcre 9y ago
That may be an explanation, but it's not a justification. Why don't these people own the land they live on? Keep asking why a couple more times.
- RestlessMind 9y ago
  Because we tried a bunch of ways to allocate lands over the course of human history. The current system (where you pay money, acquire it peacefully and the government backs your "property rights" with all the guns) seems the best among alternatives (like violence, ceding it to people who live somewhere for X years etc). Do you have a better alternative to allocate land (or any other asset)? Please share so that we can discuss.
  - dcre 9y ago
    Public housing works quite well in Vienna.[1] But my point was not necessarily that no one should own land. Another interpretation of my question — "Why don't these people own the land they live on?" — would be, why isn't there land around that they can afford to buy and give themselves security? And that has various types of answers, some related the kinds of opportunity in the economy that would give them more income, some about how we can change the supply of housing. Here are some more developed thoughts on the subject from someone more expert than I am: [2] [1] https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/case-for-public-housing-vienna-chicago https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/case-for-pub... [2] https://danielkayhertz.com/2017/05/11/what-is-a-left-approach-to-housing-in-2017/ https://danielkayhertz.com/2017/05/11/what-is-a-left-approac...
    - Kalium 9y ago
      I find the argument in favor of sunset towns in your second link rather disturbing. The article about Vienna shows that the forces of supply and demand work very well, given an adequate supply. That seems very instructive.
fluxic 9y ago
Well many of the people displacing residents don't "own" the land either. They can just afford crazier rents. The distinction between whether someone is renting or owning has little bearing on where someone considers "home". See: entitlements people feel about going back to "homelands" in the Middle East, or to Europe after the war. These are not people that owned land, and yet we still feel morally responsible to help them return to their original homelands.
- RestlessMind 9y ago
  No, I don't think it has much to do with morality. Its just that some peoples won the wars and hence could return to their homeland. Do you think Jews could have settled in Israel had they lost the fight in 1948? Or Germans would have been expelled from east of Oder had they won WW2? Even Hongkong had to be ceded back to China only after China became powerful enough to leave no other alternative. Do you think UK would have given back Hongkong if China was as weak as, say, Argentina (see: Falklands war)? Ultimately, land ownership (or its euphemisms like "homes" or "property rights") can only be backed by monopoly on violence, otherwise known as Governments, in that area.

jimduk 9y ago

I agree with your sentiment, but historically your Grand-x father potentially got sold out in the Highland Clearances by his clan leader and then emigrated to Canada/US. This made way for sheep (lots of Scotland is still relatively underpopulated) and the head of the clan probably blew the money on a town-house in London. People have roots, but they often get pulled out. See John Prebble - the Highland Clearances 1963 - ISBN-13: 978-0140028379 "‘Mr Prebble tells a terrible story excellently. There is little need to search further to explain so much of the sadness and emptiness of the northern Highlands today’ The Times.

fluxic 9y ago
Historically, this is exactly what happened. I'm just saying—it's a morally repugnant thing to happen, and it shouldn't be any less morally repugnant whether it's an entitled capitalist techie kicking my grandfather out of his house, a swindling clan leader, or some imperialist with an (albeit smalller) axe to grind. Coercion is coercion.

IkmoIkmo 9y ago

I did mention that. Again, I had to leave my own hometown too. And yes, we've argued, just like every major city, with history vs money. But at the end of the day, you're not entitled to live in the 0.01% richest square mileage because you were born there, or lived there a few decades. That's akin to birthrights. Now you can live there, if you can afford it. Affordability is a large spectrum. For example, for years I spent about 50% of my rent there, and I had a great quality of life, I liked it. But at some point, especially if you want to buy a house, get kids, reduce risk of total financial collapse the moment your income dips, etc, that's no longer affordable. The solution for me was to move to a cheaper area. In tech, wages vary quite wildly, but most people with ordinary jobs roughly earn the same. Facebook employs 17 thousand people. I don't really care much about them, relatively speaking. Walmart employs 2.3 million. I care about that number, relatively, loads more, as it concerns lots of people. Walmart salaries are pretty much the same across the country with little variance. So it just makes sense, from a quality of life perspective, for you and your family, to move to an at least somewhat affordable location. That doesn't mean sorting for price and picking the lost spot, there's lots inbetween. Lots of semi-expensive cities that can still be affordable. But SF? Come on. If you make $25k a year and have a family, that's just irresponsible. And if people need help moving, we should facilitate that. What else is the solution at scale? Giving birthrights? Giving million dollar subsidies to poor people so they can buy a 1 bedroom apartment in SF? There's ACTUAL huge issues that demands our government's resources. Look, if you live in an affordable city and can't make it on your own, need partial or full help, you should get all the help you need. But all these poor, but otherwise employable people with a decent brain and a decent body, who work hard but choose to live in a place among the richest on the planet... that makes no sense. In the same way I don't buy a BMW, or go to the four seasons, or pick the most expensive restaurant. At the end of the day, we need to pick our spending patterns based on our earnings for everything in life, living area included, and living in SF like some people do today is for many (not all) a (bad) choice. And I'm all for shifting the wealth, progressive tax rates, helping parents with daycare, in every city, I've always voted for those programmes. But we're talking about people trying to live in a city where a tiny home costs $1m, with a minimum wage income. You'd need programs that take 10x the resources that our government affords to helping people in other cities. I mean just extend the argument to the extreme... if all of the 200 million working Americans suddenly wanted to live in say Portland for some significant emotional bond... what would happen. Well there'd be homes for 10 million. The homes would skyrocket in price. There'd be jobs for say 20 million. So you'd have 200 million people offering their manhours for a tiny amount of jobs, and the wages would approach zero. You'd have affordability in the city crash, because rent and wages move in completely opposite directions at the speed of light. The solution then isn't for companies nor governments to pay/subsidise ever more than the market rate to a few million, while the rest are completely fucked. Nor is the solution to give a few people a birthright lottery ticket. The solution is for people to not choose to all live in Portland. SF is a bit like that, much less extreme. Affordability is dying, and the long-term solution probably is that some people improve their quality of life moving to places with 25% less wages and 50% lower expenses, and for the remainder to see their wages increase due to a drop in labour supply.