4 ms·

(Copy pasting my comment from elsewhere) > Our gov is effectively captured by financial interests. The "financial interests" that would provide you the bigges

(Copy pasting my comment from elsewhere) > Our gov is effectively captured by financial interests. The "financial interests" that would provide you the biggest opposition in imposing a LVT are the financial interest of the average voter! The majority of voters are homeowners, and thus their material interests lie in land values rising. As a concrete example of this, Prop 13 was passed by a referendum, not politicians. As a general point, I think housing is the major weak policy point for the left. The overarching theory that drives their politics is that the wealthy and powerful are the major barriers to positive change. Housing is the one area where that isn't true; the barrier to improvement is the "average" person.

zapataband1 5y ago
If financial interests largely decide who gets enough funding to run in an election then how is it up to the average voter? To choose which corporate funded lackey they get? I don't know what left we are talking about but most people I talk to left or liberal or right seem to agree that large financial interests or 'the elite' are sucking us dry, they pretty much just disagree on taxes. It is a theory with some pretty strong evidence, showing that normal poor people do not get their interests heard in government. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...
- neilparikh 5y ago
  > If financial interests largely decide who gets enough funding to run in an election then how is it up to the average voter? You're responding to something completely unrelated from what I claimed. I didn't say anything about how controls the government or election funding or anything like that. My point was that if you tried to implement LVT (or any other policy that would have the effect of reducing land/home values), you would face the biggest opposition from the average voter, who has a large chunk of their net worth (and often retirement savings) in their home. They have a material interest in their home value increasing. Take a look at who is the primary opposition to building new housing in metro areas and drives NIMBYism. Is it the "wealthy" or "financial interests"? No. It's the average homeowners who live in that community/city. > It is a theory with some pretty strong evidence, showing that normal poor people do not get their interests heard in government. That study is irrelevant, because it looks at Congress. Housing is not a federal issue though, it's a mostly local issue (with a bit of involvement at the state level). At the local level, average voters have a lot more power. If corporate interests are that powerful, do you really think the Bay Area would like it is now? Tech companies have been fairly unsuccessful in getting what they want in Bay Area cities. Again, we're not going to fix housing by yelling at the rich elites. They're not the ones stopping housing from being built, it's the average homeowner.

zapataband1 5y ago

If financial interests largely decide who gets enough funding to run in an election then how is it up to the average voter? To choose which corporate funded lackey they get? I don't know what left we are talking about but most people I talk to left or liberal or right seem to agree that large financial interests or 'the elite' are sucking us dry, they pretty much just disagree on taxes. It is a theory with some pretty strong evidence, showing that normal poor people do not get their interests heard in government. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...

neilparikh 5y ago
> If financial interests largely decide who gets enough funding to run in an election then how is it up to the average voter? You're responding to something completely unrelated from what I claimed. I didn't say anything about how controls the government or election funding or anything like that. My point was that if you tried to implement LVT (or any other policy that would have the effect of reducing land/home values), you would face the biggest opposition from the average voter, who has a large chunk of their net worth (and often retirement savings) in their home. They have a material interest in their home value increasing. Take a look at who is the primary opposition to building new housing in metro areas and drives NIMBYism. Is it the "wealthy" or "financial interests"? No. It's the average homeowners who live in that community/city. > It is a theory with some pretty strong evidence, showing that normal poor people do not get their interests heard in government. That study is irrelevant, because it looks at Congress. Housing is not a federal issue though, it's a mostly local issue (with a bit of involvement at the state level). At the local level, average voters have a lot more power. If corporate interests are that powerful, do you really think the Bay Area would like it is now? Tech companies have been fairly unsuccessful in getting what they want in Bay Area cities. Again, we're not going to fix housing by yelling at the rich elites. They're not the ones stopping housing from being built, it's the average homeowner.