8 ms·

> Nationalize key industries and socialize basic services like education and housing. Yeah, hopefully they don't achieve this.

consp 5y ago
Why? Some forms of this work pretty well in lots of countries, it doesn't in others. As with all its in the details but straight out saying no is just ignorant.
- HamburgerEmoji 5y ago
  Where did it work pretty well?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- barry-cotter 5y ago
  I'm not aware of anywhere that attempts to socialise housing has worked well. As a teacher and someone who has been a student I'm also extremely hesitant to say that the way education is usually provided [1] counts as working well, whether you're looking at purely economic returns on investment or human flourishing. [1] Not a knock on government provision in this case as demand for education with any real freedom seems to be extremely limited
  - ginko 5y ago
    > I'm not aware of anywhere that attempts to socialise housing has worked well. In Vienna about 25% of the total housing stock is public housing[1]. It's the main reason why rental prices are significantly below other European capitals[2]. [1] https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr_edge_featd_article_011314.html https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr_edge_featd_articl... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/503274/average-rental-cost-apartment-europe/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/503274/average-rental-co...
    - barry-cotter 5y ago
      Your [1] does not imply your [2]. If 200,000 refugees show up in Vienna tomorrow and are allowed to work and be economically productive they'll look for and find housing, bidding up prices. Housing supply does not automatically increase with demand. If the private sector provides 100,000 new dwelling places it'll have a very similar effect to the public sector doing so. Who owns the provider has limited economic effect.
    - dash2 5y ago
      Bold claim about causality there. Have you got a research design to back it up?
      - sudosysgen 5y ago
        It's pretty bold to ask for a scientific study to prove that 25% of housing being rented at a low price lowers the price of rent.
    - bumbada 5y ago
      Not really. The main reason Vienna have rental prices below other European capitals is because it was one of the few cities that actually lost a significant part of its population multiple times. It was the capital of a big empire that was destroyed and they incorporated to a different Empire that also was destroyed. Lots of people left to other cities that were not as bureaucratic looking for opportunities an oversized capital without Empire could not sustain. BTW, It was not pretty. Lots of families that used to live in Vienna now live in Israel for a reason. You could say the same thing about Detroit in the US.
      - qwytw 5y ago
        Vienna's population was at it's lowest in 1951, it has grown by almost a quarter since then, whereas Detroit's current population is a fraction of what it was in the 50's. While admittedly Vienna has been growing slower than most other major cities in Europe your explanation is ~80-100 years outdated..
      - 5y ago
PebblesHD 5y ago
In some countries with absurdly high house prices, I think some level of nationalisation of housing is an eventual inevitability. Much like Seoul, places like Sydney are so expensive that unless you already own a house, or are eventually going to inherit one, no amount of hard work or education can reliably get you into the market. Entry level prices within 25 miles of the city are around A$1.5m for a detached house, and apartments are predominantly 1 or 2 bedrooms and poorly built, so not really suitable for families. Many people suggest ‘moving west’ to the new suburbs being built, but even 30-40 miles out the prices are still around a million dollars. Given an average full time wage in the range of $50k, saving a deposit after rent is almost impossible. Not totally impossible, but very close to…
- Guthur 5y ago
  And places like Sydney are expensive in no small part because of issues like negative gearing and zoning controls, all in direct control of the government. Also the government is under no incentive to change the status quo because like any good mafia they take their cut of every transaction with stamp duty "oh you two want to trade, where's mine?".
  - PebblesHD 5y ago
    You’re not wrong, but I would hope that by the time we work ourselves into a situation where there is no unskilled labour within commuting distance of where the work is, the government might finally realise that lack of workers is bad for business, which seems to be the main concern. I’m still wondering if we will reach a point where normal people don’t have any disposable money to spend in shops because it’s all going to landlords and utilities/basics, and if at that point they might go ‘oh wait that’s bad’
    - killtimeatwork 5y ago
      I can't really see politicians allowing the inflated housing market to deflate. So many people will lose years/decades worth of saving this way - that would mean a lot of angry voters, not to mention another potential banking crash, as mortgages would no longer be backed by houses of enough value. I think high housing prices in developed world are going to stay with us for a long time.
throwawaysea 5y ago
I agree this would be a bad turn. In the US, it is frustrating to see the poor results produced by the public education system and teacher unions, particularly for K-12 education. The lack of competition and union power has led to an empty incentive structure, where teacher unions regularly oppose having their outcomes measured and don't fear needing to compete with better teachers or schools. Beyond that, organizations like the NEA (the largest teacher union and also largest union in the US) are increasingly political and inject their (far left) activism into the schooling system as a means to indoctrinate the next generation. Choice is critical in things like education, and being forced to pay taxes to prop up a one-size-fits-all government-mandated choice is unethical because it is plainly bad for students and society.
- maeln 5y ago
  Public education work in a lot of country (see for example most European country). Teacher also tend to be heavily unionised in other country, as well as having a tendency to be more left-leaning (but that is a veeeryyy big generalization). The issue is not the public education, teacher or union, it's the U.S government(s?) lack of incentive to actually care about those services.
  - disgruntledphd2 5y ago
    It's the property taxes funding education. Like, if you wanted to reinforce pre-existing class/income divides someplace, you'd fund education with local property taxes.
- FpUser 5y ago
  Of course it is way better to have decent education available to people with boatloads of money while the rest works 3 low paid jobs to make the ends meet without any hope to ever have anything resembling normal life.
- lm28469 5y ago
  It's a US problem, not a socialised education problem, same for your social security system, it works in many many other countries
barry-cotter 5y ago
One day, hopefully we'll be rich enough to do this and not have it be a mess. Fullly automated luxury space communism is the goal.
- SiempreViernes 5y ago
  Don't keep your hopes up, in the US military spending will keep eating most of all surplus, but on the upside you'll have the most genocidal nuclear weapons of all countries on Earth!
  - hunterb123 5y ago
    Most of the tech we have is in some way due to military spending
    - BelenusMordred 5y ago
      US defense R&D is tiny compared to total expenditure. It's also falling dramatically. https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2020/02/us-defense-rd-funding-falls-chinas-keeps-growing/163021/ https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2020/02/us-defense-rd-...
    - c21h30o2 5y ago
      Maybe spend more on civilian research then. Wouldn't it be cool if the government would spend trillions on researching cool new tech for improving society rather than destroying it?
    - SiempreViernes 5y ago
      Do you have some history of technology sources to back up this claim? Because even radar was first developed for the civilian setting before the military boosted its development tremendously to solve their WW2 related needs. I think a much better theory of technological development is that the military mainly funds engineering development of existing technology and doesn't stumble into truly new inventions faster than anyone else. A corollary to this is that most tech is not related to military spending because most spending is not military spending.
SiempreViernes 5y ago
Seems very ambitious for such a modest union, 1/36 of the working age population is a bit small if you're going to demand nationalisation. I guess this is one of these framing devices to make their real objective seem more palatable?
- diordiderot 5y ago
  3.5% Rule. You only need 1/30th of the population to overthrow a government through economic non participation.
  - thorin 5y ago
    Interesting I hadn't heard of that before, but I found a bit more information here: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190513-it-only-takes-35-of-people-to-change-the-world https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190513-it-only-takes-35... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erica_Chenoweth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erica_Chenoweth
FpUser 5y ago
Frankly this is none of your business. Their country, their choice.
dang 5y ago
Please don't take HN threads into flamewar, please stop posting flamebait and/or unsubstantive comments, and please don't use HN for ideological battle. All of that is against the site guidelines. Edit: you've unfortunately been doing this repeatedly. We ban that sort of account, so if you'd please fix this, we'd be grateful. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

consp 5y ago

Why? Some forms of this work pretty well in lots of countries, it doesn't in others. As with all its in the details but straight out saying no is just ignorant.

HamburgerEmoji 5y ago
Where did it work pretty well?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
barry-cotter 5y ago
I'm not aware of anywhere that attempts to socialise housing has worked well. As a teacher and someone who has been a student I'm also extremely hesitant to say that the way education is usually provided [1] counts as working well, whether you're looking at purely economic returns on investment or human flourishing. [1] Not a knock on government provision in this case as demand for education with any real freedom seems to be extremely limited
- ginko 5y ago
  > I'm not aware of anywhere that attempts to socialise housing has worked well. In Vienna about 25% of the total housing stock is public housing[1]. It's the main reason why rental prices are significantly below other European capitals[2]. [1] https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr_edge_featd_article_011314.html https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr_edge_featd_articl... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/503274/average-rental-cost-apartment-europe/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/503274/average-rental-co...
  - barry-cotter 5y ago
    Your [1] does not imply your [2]. If 200,000 refugees show up in Vienna tomorrow and are allowed to work and be economically productive they'll look for and find housing, bidding up prices. Housing supply does not automatically increase with demand. If the private sector provides 100,000 new dwelling places it'll have a very similar effect to the public sector doing so. Who owns the provider has limited economic effect.
  - dash2 5y ago
    Bold claim about causality there. Have you got a research design to back it up?
    - sudosysgen 5y ago
      It's pretty bold to ask for a scientific study to prove that 25% of housing being rented at a low price lowers the price of rent.
  - bumbada 5y ago
    Not really. The main reason Vienna have rental prices below other European capitals is because it was one of the few cities that actually lost a significant part of its population multiple times. It was the capital of a big empire that was destroyed and they incorporated to a different Empire that also was destroyed. Lots of people left to other cities that were not as bureaucratic looking for opportunities an oversized capital without Empire could not sustain. BTW, It was not pretty. Lots of families that used to live in Vienna now live in Israel for a reason. You could say the same thing about Detroit in the US.
    - qwytw 5y ago
      Vienna's population was at it's lowest in 1951, it has grown by almost a quarter since then, whereas Detroit's current population is a fraction of what it was in the 50's. While admittedly Vienna has been growing slower than most other major cities in Europe your explanation is ~80-100 years outdated..
    - 5y ago

PebblesHD 5y ago

In some countries with absurdly high house prices, I think some level of nationalisation of housing is an eventual inevitability. Much like Seoul, places like Sydney are so expensive that unless you already own a house, or are eventually going to inherit one, no amount of hard work or education can reliably get you into the market. Entry level prices within 25 miles of the city are around A$1.5m for a detached house, and apartments are predominantly 1 or 2 bedrooms and poorly built, so not really suitable for families. Many people suggest ‘moving west’ to the new suburbs being built, but even 30-40 miles out the prices are still around a million dollars. Given an average full time wage in the range of $50k, saving a deposit after rent is almost impossible. Not totally impossible, but very close to…

Guthur 5y ago
And places like Sydney are expensive in no small part because of issues like negative gearing and zoning controls, all in direct control of the government. Also the government is under no incentive to change the status quo because like any good mafia they take their cut of every transaction with stamp duty "oh you two want to trade, where's mine?".
- PebblesHD 5y ago
  You’re not wrong, but I would hope that by the time we work ourselves into a situation where there is no unskilled labour within commuting distance of where the work is, the government might finally realise that lack of workers is bad for business, which seems to be the main concern. I’m still wondering if we will reach a point where normal people don’t have any disposable money to spend in shops because it’s all going to landlords and utilities/basics, and if at that point they might go ‘oh wait that’s bad’
  - killtimeatwork 5y ago
    I can't really see politicians allowing the inflated housing market to deflate. So many people will lose years/decades worth of saving this way - that would mean a lot of angry voters, not to mention another potential banking crash, as mortgages would no longer be backed by houses of enough value. I think high housing prices in developed world are going to stay with us for a long time.

throwawaysea 5y ago

I agree this would be a bad turn. In the US, it is frustrating to see the poor results produced by the public education system and teacher unions, particularly for K-12 education. The lack of competition and union power has led to an empty incentive structure, where teacher unions regularly oppose having their outcomes measured and don't fear needing to compete with better teachers or schools. Beyond that, organizations like the NEA (the largest teacher union and also largest union in the US) are increasingly political and inject their (far left) activism into the schooling system as a means to indoctrinate the next generation. Choice is critical in things like education, and being forced to pay taxes to prop up a one-size-fits-all government-mandated choice is unethical because it is plainly bad for students and society.

maeln 5y ago
Public education work in a lot of country (see for example most European country). Teacher also tend to be heavily unionised in other country, as well as having a tendency to be more left-leaning (but that is a veeeryyy big generalization). The issue is not the public education, teacher or union, it's the U.S government(s?) lack of incentive to actually care about those services.
- disgruntledphd2 5y ago
  It's the property taxes funding education. Like, if you wanted to reinforce pre-existing class/income divides someplace, you'd fund education with local property taxes.
FpUser 5y ago
Of course it is way better to have decent education available to people with boatloads of money while the rest works 3 low paid jobs to make the ends meet without any hope to ever have anything resembling normal life.
lm28469 5y ago
It's a US problem, not a socialised education problem, same for your social security system, it works in many many other countries

barry-cotter 5y ago

One day, hopefully we'll be rich enough to do this and not have it be a mess. Fullly automated luxury space communism is the goal.

SiempreViernes 5y ago
Don't keep your hopes up, in the US military spending will keep eating most of all surplus, but on the upside you'll have the most genocidal nuclear weapons of all countries on Earth!
- hunterb123 5y ago
  Most of the tech we have is in some way due to military spending
  - BelenusMordred 5y ago
    US defense R&D is tiny compared to total expenditure. It's also falling dramatically. https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2020/02/us-defense-rd-funding-falls-chinas-keeps-growing/163021/ https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2020/02/us-defense-rd-...
  - c21h30o2 5y ago
    Maybe spend more on civilian research then. Wouldn't it be cool if the government would spend trillions on researching cool new tech for improving society rather than destroying it?
  - SiempreViernes 5y ago
    Do you have some history of technology sources to back up this claim? Because even radar was first developed for the civilian setting before the military boosted its development tremendously to solve their WW2 related needs. I think a much better theory of technological development is that the military mainly funds engineering development of existing technology and doesn't stumble into truly new inventions faster than anyone else. A corollary to this is that most tech is not related to military spending because most spending is not military spending.

SiempreViernes 5y ago

Seems very ambitious for such a modest union, 1/36 of the working age population is a bit small if you're going to demand nationalisation. I guess this is one of these framing devices to make their real objective seem more palatable?

diordiderot 5y ago
3.5% Rule. You only need 1/30th of the population to overthrow a government through economic non participation.
- thorin 5y ago
  Interesting I hadn't heard of that before, but I found a bit more information here: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190513-it-only-takes-35-of-people-to-change-the-world https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190513-it-only-takes-35... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erica_Chenoweth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erica_Chenoweth

FpUser 5y ago

Frankly this is none of your business. Their country, their choice.

dang 5y ago

Please don't take HN threads into flamewar, please stop posting flamebait and/or unsubstantive comments, and please don't use HN for ideological battle. All of that is against the site guidelines. Edit: you've unfortunately been doing this repeatedly. We ban that sort of account, so if you'd please fix this, we'd be grateful. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html