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> "Markets" in this case eat themselves. Being able to pass local regulations is a perversion of the term "markets". By that logic, the entire world is a free
by bhupy 6y ago
> "Markets" in this case eat themselves.
Being able to pass local regulations is a perversion of the term "markets". By that logic, the entire world is a free market, even those countries where national governments have been "captured" to suffocate markets like Cuba and North Korea.
Either that, or we need to then come up with a term to describe "property rights free of any regulation". One of my links even describes it as "laissez faire" land use policy, which is what we mean when we say "markets".
The solution to the problem is to actually strengthen property rights: by allowing property owners to build whatever they please on their land without the permission of their local community. We already do that for life and speech — you can't vote to kill somebody, nor can you vote to prevent someone from publishing something. Why then can you vote to prevent someone from building an apartment building?
- dredmorbius 6y agoDenying reality carries costs. Smith's opus is often read as a critique of Communism. That's anachronistic: Das Capital was a critique of Smith, or at least what emerged in his name. Smith was a critique not only of mercantilism, as is commonly acknowledged, but what we would now call capture and monopoly.
- bhupy 6y agoAnd Locke had a proviso: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockean_proviso https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockean_proviso In any case — it's a huge stretch to suggest that allowing other property owners to dictate what you can and can't build on your own property constitutes "property rights".
- dredmorbius 6y agoNo rights are absolute, and most uss of land carry some externality. I'm not willing to entertain that no consideration be given these. That's also spectacularly missing the main point that price-inelastic goods and services (those affording economic rents) increase in price where supply can be constrained by some means, setting up an intrinsic and wholly market-consistent dynamic of increasing prices and decreasing supply relative to demand. The same dynamic is present for most of the price-inflated goods on Collison's list, and goes a long way to explaining the behaviour he ponders.
- bhupy 6y ago> No rights are absolute, and most uss of land carry some externality. I'm not willing to entertain that no consideration be given these. This is a bit of a deflection, since it’s entirely reasonable to enforce some property regulations based around reducing externalities (eg. you can’t construct a building that will collapse onto the sidewalk and injure/kill a passerby), while preserving general property rights. The US’s speech rights are pretty close to absolute, with some notable exceptions (imminent lawless action). The argument is to get our property rights to look the same. > That’s also spectacularly missing the main point that price-inelastic goods and services (those affording economic rents) increase in price where supply can be constrained by some means Nobody denies this, and it is entirely orthogonal to the question at hand: “does zoning regulation constitute a market-based regime?”. The answer to that question is, resoundingly “No”. If you think that this is “the market” at work, then we need to come up with a new term to describe “system that allows free enterprise, property, and trade free from regulation”. Whatever term we agree upon: that’s what we’re pushing for. It is also historical revisionism to suggest that zoning regulation came about strictly to extract rents. While that’s the case today, the origins of zoning are rooted in racism: https://www.asu.edu/courses/aph294/total-readings/silver%20--%20racialoriginsofzoning.pdf https://www.asu.edu/courses/aph294/total-readings/silver%20-...