4 ms·

> a generation of young people who cannot easily afford to rent or buy and think capitalism has let them down Thats not some irrational misconception- capitali

by fergie 6y ago

> a generation of young people who cannot easily afford to rent or buy and think capitalism has let them down Thats not some irrational misconception- capitalism has indeed let these people down. Capitalism, a set of social policies that prioritises the needs of capital over the needs of people, is literally a system that is designed to concentrate ownership. Under capitalism the best way to make money is to own, or have access to, capital: therefore if you want a house, the best way to do that is to already have another house. I'm not going to pretend to have the answers to this problem (although they probably involve some combination of tax relief for owner-occupancy, and a relaxation of planning regulations), but it is important to recognise the housing crisis as a negative outcome of capitalism, just as technology should be recognised as a positive outcome. The more people have access to capital, the more popular and sensible capitalism becomes. Home ownership is the best way to promote capitalism, and government should do its best to encourage it.

gonzo41 6y ago
You could regulate the market. 1 house per person perhaps? I can only sleep in one bed at a time. It makes sense to have only one.
- Traster 6y ago
  Here's a funny thing, in the UK the main tax associated with owning a house is council tax, you pay it to the local council for the services they provide (although we can have an argument about where the money actually goes since it's all fungible anyway and the central government repeatedly butts in and restricts councils). As you suggest we could disincentivize second home ownership by levying a higher tax on it. How does this manifest in real policy in the UK today - 2nd homes, and homes occupied by only one person more often than not receive lower taxes than normal.
lucian1900 6y ago
I expected your last two paragraphs to argue for abolishing capitalism, after such a robust critique of its fundamental contradiction. Why not publicly owned and democratically controlled housing, like socialist countries have? I grew up in a flat where my parents paid less for rent to the state than for utilities.
- fogihujy 6y ago
  In general, large public housing projects may seem very nice at first, but once the maintenance costs start going up (20-30 years later) it will become increasingly difficult for a publicly owned business to avoid increasing rent. Old buildings are simply quite expensive to maintain, especially when regulations require that buildings are occasionally renovated and brought in line with recent changes in regulations. If you want to get around that then you need to subsidize some of those expenses using tax money, or simply use tax money to fund the renovations, and in most cases where such measures would be applicable it's simply not possible to divert resources that way, or there simply is no way to get a political consensus around such measures. I lived in such a neighbourhood when I worked in Sweden about a decade ago. Publicly owned, low rents, great public transport, within walking/biking distance to the city centre, decent mix of people from various cultures, and a crime rate that was somewhat tolerable despite the relatively low average income. Problem was, while the apartments were nice, the buildings' basements (incl. 1950's cold war fallout shelters), foundations, exteriors and the outdoor areas were in a pretty rough shape after 60 years, and the publicly owned business that owned the entire neighbourhood was desperate to sell it off to private developers, as they simply couldn't afford to maintain it any more. It was razed a few years after I moved out, and it's been replaced with privately owned luxury apartments.
  - lucian1900 6y ago
    You have described very well the limits of social democracy, indeed. Ceding any ground to markets and capital ends up eroding any gains won by the working class. Similar happened after capitalism was restored in Eastern Europe. Even though housing was built and maintained just fine for many decades, very little was built or maintained after 89 since there was no profit in it.
    - emteycz 6y ago
      This is absolutely false. I have lived in many of these communist buildings, and the reality here is that these buildings are built so extremely badly and without any consideration of the surrounding that nothing can be done. The communists used toxic materials, didn't care about maintenance and simply built a wall where a maintenance shaft should've been, didn't care about safety, didn't care about families sharing master bedroom walls, etc etc. Thus these buildings are waiting for end-of-life to be torn down. That's typical of communist 'efficiency' - loud boasting of unbelievable achievement while shit's all fucked up. Every building that reasonably could be repaired is beautifully reworked today, because construction is expensive and working with what is already there is almost always cheaper, if at all possible. However profit is not really the main argument as these buildings are typically owned by the inhabitants nowadays, and they should have the choice of what to do with their own property, don't you think? The thing that shocks me most about my childhood photos is how the city looked absolutely horribly terrible - every building was mid-destruction, no paint anywhere, valuable historical buildings with falling walls and destroyed windows, etc; even the damn child nursery had paper boxes in few windows instead of glass! I'm very happy that I didn't notice it much back then and when I was teen most buildings got at least painted over. Growing up in the environment of my younger childhood must've been extremely depressing.
yosito 6y ago
> Capitalism, a set of social policies that prioritises the needs of capital over the needs of people I'm not sure that there's a consensus around that definition of capitalism.
heresie-dabord 6y ago
Disclaimer: I dislike the Econo-Mist. (Reading link: https://archive.is/Txnc4 https://archive.is/Txnc4 ; thanks to user neonate.) There is more than one "generation of people who question capitalism". Why reduce the critique to a single generation? > A trillion dollars of dud mortgages blew up the financial system in 2007-08. How about the bad banking system that enabled this rottenness? Even I understand that "corrections" happen. > America’s GDP could be 4% higher. That is an enormous prize. It is not the only "prize". Cities have been vibrant because they have been liveable. Quality of life is a benefit of a healthy community. I want to live somewhere in peace with clean resources and necessary services, without the threat of eviction. I like having a good job but I would not trade my health or the health of family and friends just for a job. The hollowing of communities for the "prize" of a wealthy elite's profit is a threat to Democracy. Not all NIMBYism is to be deplored -- some of it is lucid resistance. Is the argument then that "cities" are more "vibrant economic units" than they are communities? I don't agree. Quality of life has a cost. Some of the things that needs to happen: investment in public transportation, incentives for distributing employment geographically (telework and distributed spaces), policies to protect quality of life, and taxes that distribute fairly the cost of maintaining community and services.
username90 6y ago
Capitalism is first and foremost a system to organize labour, and it is very efficient at organizing labour so almost every country uses it. Then what happens to the fruit of said labour is up to the people in a democracy, they can vote to tax it heavily and create a lot of social policies like the Scandinavians or they can vote to let most of it go to owners and managers like in USA.

by fergie 6y ago

gonzo41 6y ago

You could regulate the market. 1 house per person perhaps? I can only sleep in one bed at a time. It makes sense to have only one.

Traster 6y ago
Here's a funny thing, in the UK the main tax associated with owning a house is council tax, you pay it to the local council for the services they provide (although we can have an argument about where the money actually goes since it's all fungible anyway and the central government repeatedly butts in and restricts councils). As you suggest we could disincentivize second home ownership by levying a higher tax on it. How does this manifest in real policy in the UK today - 2nd homes, and homes occupied by only one person more often than not receive lower taxes than normal.

lucian1900 6y ago

I expected your last two paragraphs to argue for abolishing capitalism, after such a robust critique of its fundamental contradiction. Why not publicly owned and democratically controlled housing, like socialist countries have? I grew up in a flat where my parents paid less for rent to the state than for utilities.

fogihujy 6y ago
In general, large public housing projects may seem very nice at first, but once the maintenance costs start going up (20-30 years later) it will become increasingly difficult for a publicly owned business to avoid increasing rent. Old buildings are simply quite expensive to maintain, especially when regulations require that buildings are occasionally renovated and brought in line with recent changes in regulations. If you want to get around that then you need to subsidize some of those expenses using tax money, or simply use tax money to fund the renovations, and in most cases where such measures would be applicable it's simply not possible to divert resources that way, or there simply is no way to get a political consensus around such measures. I lived in such a neighbourhood when I worked in Sweden about a decade ago. Publicly owned, low rents, great public transport, within walking/biking distance to the city centre, decent mix of people from various cultures, and a crime rate that was somewhat tolerable despite the relatively low average income. Problem was, while the apartments were nice, the buildings' basements (incl. 1950's cold war fallout shelters), foundations, exteriors and the outdoor areas were in a pretty rough shape after 60 years, and the publicly owned business that owned the entire neighbourhood was desperate to sell it off to private developers, as they simply couldn't afford to maintain it any more. It was razed a few years after I moved out, and it's been replaced with privately owned luxury apartments.
- lucian1900 6y ago
  You have described very well the limits of social democracy, indeed. Ceding any ground to markets and capital ends up eroding any gains won by the working class. Similar happened after capitalism was restored in Eastern Europe. Even though housing was built and maintained just fine for many decades, very little was built or maintained after 89 since there was no profit in it.
  - emteycz 6y ago
    This is absolutely false. I have lived in many of these communist buildings, and the reality here is that these buildings are built so extremely badly and without any consideration of the surrounding that nothing can be done. The communists used toxic materials, didn't care about maintenance and simply built a wall where a maintenance shaft should've been, didn't care about safety, didn't care about families sharing master bedroom walls, etc etc. Thus these buildings are waiting for end-of-life to be torn down. That's typical of communist 'efficiency' - loud boasting of unbelievable achievement while shit's all fucked up. Every building that reasonably could be repaired is beautifully reworked today, because construction is expensive and working with what is already there is almost always cheaper, if at all possible. However profit is not really the main argument as these buildings are typically owned by the inhabitants nowadays, and they should have the choice of what to do with their own property, don't you think? The thing that shocks me most about my childhood photos is how the city looked absolutely horribly terrible - every building was mid-destruction, no paint anywhere, valuable historical buildings with falling walls and destroyed windows, etc; even the damn child nursery had paper boxes in few windows instead of glass! I'm very happy that I didn't notice it much back then and when I was teen most buildings got at least painted over. Growing up in the environment of my younger childhood must've been extremely depressing.

yosito 6y ago

> Capitalism, a set of social policies that prioritises the needs of capital over the needs of people I'm not sure that there's a consensus around that definition of capitalism.

heresie-dabord 6y ago

Disclaimer: I dislike the Econo-Mist. (Reading link: https://archive.is/Txnc4 https://archive.is/Txnc4 ; thanks to user neonate.) There is more than one "generation of people who question capitalism". Why reduce the critique to a single generation? > A trillion dollars of dud mortgages blew up the financial system in 2007-08. How about the bad banking system that enabled this rottenness? Even I understand that "corrections" happen. > America’s GDP could be 4% higher. That is an enormous prize. It is not the only "prize". Cities have been vibrant because they have been liveable. Quality of life is a benefit of a healthy community. I want to live somewhere in peace with clean resources and necessary services, without the threat of eviction. I like having a good job but I would not trade my health or the health of family and friends just for a job. The hollowing of communities for the "prize" of a wealthy elite's profit is a threat to Democracy. Not all NIMBYism is to be deplored -- some of it is lucid resistance. Is the argument then that "cities" are more "vibrant economic units" than they are communities? I don't agree. Quality of life has a cost. Some of the things that needs to happen: investment in public transportation, incentives for distributing employment geographically (telework and distributed spaces), policies to protect quality of life, and taxes that distribute fairly the cost of maintaining community and services.

username90 6y ago

Capitalism is first and foremost a system to organize labour, and it is very efficient at organizing labour so almost every country uses it. Then what happens to the fruit of said labour is up to the people in a democracy, they can vote to tax it heavily and create a lot of social policies like the Scandinavians or they can vote to let most of it go to owners and managers like in USA.