10 ms·

Parks and Houses for the People

47 points by Thevet 6y ago

viburnum 6y ago
I’ve read elsewhere that the wage-earner funds were never very popular, and were actually a break from the tradition of the Social Democrats to only pursue popular policies, often with the support of the Liberals or Center.
Ozzie_osman 6y ago
History will look back at how one of the most prosperous nations in the world's history (modern America) had millions of people living without decent access to housing and healthcare. I don't know what the right model is for sure, and whether it is the Swedish one, but whatever it is, it isn't what we're doing now.
- drewcoo 6y ago
  In what empire throughout history is that not true? The USA will not be notable in that respect.
  - Ozzie_osman 6y ago
    I'm not a historian so I can't definitively say whether any empire was able to provide a decent standard of living for its own citizens (even if it was at the expense of other people it conquered). But this is probably the first time we've had resources, technology, information, and supposed social structure (ie democracy) that should make it all within our means.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - kitotik 6y ago
    It seems fairly notable already. It doesn’t even take a future look back. Compare the current access to healthcare amongst citizens of the wealthy “1st world” countries to the United States. Amid a pandemic, the number has dropped by millions for Americans.
  - acituan 6y ago
    It will, because 2020 USA has a GDP per capita in PPP that is at least an order of magnitude higher than any empire in the history. It is the floor of the life experience one can suffer compared to what wealth we have. There are both historical and contemporary societies that are much better at social policies and wealth redistribution than USA.
- unclebucknasty 6y ago
  Like too much these days, the alternatives we've been provided are at the extremes. They seem to be offered less as viable solutions and more as tools for sorting people into one of two buckets. So, we must be either communists or laissez faire capitalists without a hint of regulation. But, of course real solutions--particularly to such macro scale challenges--are seldom found at the extremes. If we could spark an earnest discussion about what a saner version of capitalism would look like, then we could find a solution, and relatively easily vs what our "manipulated" experience might suggest. EDIT: looking at the responses, then rereading my comment, I realize I wasn't clear. What I was trying to say is the state of things is such that the solutions offered are characterized as communist, with the offered alternative being a form of laissez-faire economics, positioned as "standard" capitalism. My bad. I blew that one.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > So, we must be either communists or laissez faire capitalists without a hint of regulation. Actual options recently offered or widely discussed on healthcare, one of the key issues raised, have included: Medicare for All — private providers with a public monopsony purchaser (the most “socialist” option, but it's not even really socialist in the sense of public control of the means of production, the way UK-style NHS is.) The ACA model with an added option to buy into public insurance. Return to the ACA model (restoring the parts that have been unfunded or reauthorized) without adding a public option. Return to the heavily regulated pre-ACA private insurance model, with additional federal transparency regulations for providers, and federal rules allowing interstate sales. These all have arguments for and against them, but that it's a binary choice between communism and laissez-faire capitalism isn't a remotely accurate complaint.
    - pdonis 6y ago
      You didn't include the option Obama was pushing during the 2008 campaign, which made obvious sense to me: Take the health care policy that's already in existence for all Federal employees, and extend it to all US citizens. The Federal government already has agreements with health insurance companies providing a wide range of options across the country. Why not just extend those agreements to cover everyone, not just Federal employees?
danbmil99 6y ago
The US was building similar housing around the same time. We call them The Projects. In the UK they're called Council Flats.
- viburnum 6y ago
  The big difference is in the social housing model rent is on a sliding scale so you get a mix of incomes. In America public housing was only for very poor people. America's public housing era also coincided with deindustrialization, the end of full employment, and the neoliberal turn. Good social policies work together. When some policies are neglected the policies that exist get blamed for the overall failure. For example, in America there's poverty, so schools in poor areas are blamed. Nobody in rich suburbs wants charter schools. The problem is obviously economic policies that cause poverty, not the schools, but because there's no full employment policy, the schools get blamed.
yt-sdb 6y ago
This topic reminds me of Jenny Odell's "How to Do Nothing" [1]. The book links the attention economy with the loss of public space in ways that I had never considered but now believe to be true. Consider two thoughts. First, a mall is not a true public space. It is a branded, controlled experience designed for shopping. For many teenagers in America, the mall is a default hang out space—or at least was when I was a kid. Second, today you can easily see an ad on your phone before you say hello to your partner or kids, before you go outside, before you use the bathroom. Underpinning these issues is the gnawing feeling, for many people, that we must be _more productive_. Time is money. Space is money. You should be doing something or, if you must do nothing, do nothing so that you can do something more later. Did you know that these CEOs read this many books this year? This successful person mediates an hour a day. What have you shipped today? Her solution is not to delete your social media accounts, throw out your smart phone, and disappear into the woods. Her solution is to ground yourself. Watch birds. Learn about who lived on the land before you. Talk to your neighbors. Walk down a river. Get involved in local politics. This process of remembering that you're a physical being in a physical place, that you live in a real community, is a reminder that your life is interdependent upon everything around you. I'm not quite sure how this is related to public housing, but I suspect it is, e.g. this article's main theme is that these public spaces grew out of labor movements that also fought for things like the 8-hour work day. [1] http://www.jennyodell.com/writing.html http://www.jennyodell.com/writing.html
- staticautomatic 6y ago
  You might enjoy George Lakoff's book Metaphors We Live By.
keenmaster 6y ago
Is there a good faith counter-narrative to the history of People’s Parks and Houses that isn’t presented here? I’m genuinely curious. The whole movement seems fascinating, but I wasn’t satisfied with the explanation of why Sweden adopted a more neoliberal approach after WWII. You’d think there are at least some downsides of bottom-up welfare, otherwise it would have persisted for longer. If Swedes really wanted to they could try a similar approach to welfare today. I suspect it takes a lot of communal bandwidth that is scarcer in the modern age. The average person is substituting whatever “work leisure” they may have performed before with pure leisure. The former, more civic form of leisure is necessary for bottom-up welfare.

47 points by Thevet 6y ago

I’ve read elsewhere that the wage-earner funds were never very popular, and were actually a break from the tradition of the Social Democrats to only pursue popular policies, often with the support of the Liberals or Center.

Ozzie_osman 6y ago

History will look back at how one of the most prosperous nations in the world's history (modern America) had millions of people living without decent access to housing and healthcare. I don't know what the right model is for sure, and whether it is the Swedish one, but whatever it is, it isn't what we're doing now.

drewcoo 6y ago
In what empire throughout history is that not true? The USA will not be notable in that respect.
- Ozzie_osman 6y ago
  I'm not a historian so I can't definitively say whether any empire was able to provide a decent standard of living for its own citizens (even if it was at the expense of other people it conquered). But this is probably the first time we've had resources, technology, information, and supposed social structure (ie democracy) that should make it all within our means.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- kitotik 6y ago
  It seems fairly notable already. It doesn’t even take a future look back. Compare the current access to healthcare amongst citizens of the wealthy “1st world” countries to the United States. Amid a pandemic, the number has dropped by millions for Americans.
- acituan 6y ago
  It will, because 2020 USA has a GDP per capita in PPP that is at least an order of magnitude higher than any empire in the history. It is the floor of the life experience one can suffer compared to what wealth we have. There are both historical and contemporary societies that are much better at social policies and wealth redistribution than USA.
unclebucknasty 6y ago
Like too much these days, the alternatives we've been provided are at the extremes. They seem to be offered less as viable solutions and more as tools for sorting people into one of two buckets. So, we must be either communists or laissez faire capitalists without a hint of regulation. But, of course real solutions--particularly to such macro scale challenges--are seldom found at the extremes. If we could spark an earnest discussion about what a saner version of capitalism would look like, then we could find a solution, and relatively easily vs what our "manipulated" experience might suggest. EDIT: looking at the responses, then rereading my comment, I realize I wasn't clear. What I was trying to say is the state of things is such that the solutions offered are characterized as communist, with the offered alternative being a form of laissez-faire economics, positioned as "standard" capitalism. My bad. I blew that one.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > So, we must be either communists or laissez faire capitalists without a hint of regulation. Actual options recently offered or widely discussed on healthcare, one of the key issues raised, have included: Medicare for All — private providers with a public monopsony purchaser (the most “socialist” option, but it's not even really socialist in the sense of public control of the means of production, the way UK-style NHS is.) The ACA model with an added option to buy into public insurance. Return to the ACA model (restoring the parts that have been unfunded or reauthorized) without adding a public option. Return to the heavily regulated pre-ACA private insurance model, with additional federal transparency regulations for providers, and federal rules allowing interstate sales. These all have arguments for and against them, but that it's a binary choice between communism and laissez-faire capitalism isn't a remotely accurate complaint.
  - pdonis 6y ago
    You didn't include the option Obama was pushing during the 2008 campaign, which made obvious sense to me: Take the health care policy that's already in existence for all Federal employees, and extend it to all US citizens. The Federal government already has agreements with health insurance companies providing a wide range of options across the country. Why not just extend those agreements to cover everyone, not just Federal employees?

danbmil99 6y ago

The US was building similar housing around the same time. We call them The Projects. In the UK they're called Council Flats.

viburnum 6y ago
The big difference is in the social housing model rent is on a sliding scale so you get a mix of incomes. In America public housing was only for very poor people. America's public housing era also coincided with deindustrialization, the end of full employment, and the neoliberal turn. Good social policies work together. When some policies are neglected the policies that exist get blamed for the overall failure. For example, in America there's poverty, so schools in poor areas are blamed. Nobody in rich suburbs wants charter schools. The problem is obviously economic policies that cause poverty, not the schools, but because there's no full employment policy, the schools get blamed.

yt-sdb 6y ago

This topic reminds me of Jenny Odell's "How to Do Nothing" [1]. The book links the attention economy with the loss of public space in ways that I had never considered but now believe to be true. Consider two thoughts. First, a mall is not a true public space. It is a branded, controlled experience designed for shopping. For many teenagers in America, the mall is a default hang out space—or at least was when I was a kid. Second, today you can easily see an ad on your phone before you say hello to your partner or kids, before you go outside, before you use the bathroom. Underpinning these issues is the gnawing feeling, for many people, that we must be _more productive_. Time is money. Space is money. You should be doing something or, if you must do nothing, do nothing so that you can do something more later. Did you know that these CEOs read this many books this year? This successful person mediates an hour a day. What have you shipped today? Her solution is not to delete your social media accounts, throw out your smart phone, and disappear into the woods. Her solution is to ground yourself. Watch birds. Learn about who lived on the land before you. Talk to your neighbors. Walk down a river. Get involved in local politics. This process of remembering that you're a physical being in a physical place, that you live in a real community, is a reminder that your life is interdependent upon everything around you. I'm not quite sure how this is related to public housing, but I suspect it is, e.g. this article's main theme is that these public spaces grew out of labor movements that also fought for things like the 8-hour work day. [1] http://www.jennyodell.com/writing.html http://www.jennyodell.com/writing.html

staticautomatic 6y ago
You might enjoy George Lakoff's book Metaphors We Live By.

keenmaster 6y ago

Is there a good faith counter-narrative to the history of People’s Parks and Houses that isn’t presented here? I’m genuinely curious. The whole movement seems fascinating, but I wasn’t satisfied with the explanation of why Sweden adopted a more neoliberal approach after WWII. You’d think there are at least some downsides of bottom-up welfare, otherwise it would have persisted for longer. If Swedes really wanted to they could try a similar approach to welfare today. I suspect it takes a lot of communal bandwidth that is scarcer in the modern age. The average person is substituting whatever “work leisure” they may have performed before with pure leisure. The former, more civic form of leisure is necessary for bottom-up welfare.