6 ms·

How will you be deciding who gets to have a view of the ocean, and who gets to sleep next to the overpass? First come first serve? Birthright?

nivenkos 4y ago
Pricing? You can have the government / housing co-ops sell properties and just forbid private renting out in absentia.
- paisawalla 4y ago
  The point is that 1 KWh is 1KWh, but your home on the top floor of Millennium Tower is not equivalent to my home across from the 680 overpass. Housing is not a commodity like electricity, it's not fungible.
turtledove 4y ago
You could have a lottery, adjust prices within a regulated range, offer incentives for less desirable lots. You could reward developers for lots that have long wait lists and lots of interest, incentivizing developers who build places people want to live.
- paisawalla 4y ago
  Ah hmm, that's interesting. How have lotteries for highly desired goods worked out in other centrally planned regimes? Did we find a pretty broad socioeconomic distribution among dacha owners in the USSR?
  - p1esk 4y ago
    Did we find a pretty broad socioeconomic distribution among dacha owners in the USSR? Yes.
- headsoup 4y ago
  What if someone less fortunate 'wins' the mansion on the beach. How do they afford the future upkeep?
  - turtledove 4y ago
    This is a fair question, and one I'm not entirely satisfied that I have the answer for. Ideally, in my mind, I wouldn't own my home but I'd also be on the hook for maintenance and upkeep. But I recognize this does not meet everyone's needs and needs more thought. I would also hope that we would tend to build fewer mansions in favor of more multi family complexes, cohousing, coops, and small community oriented housing on the beach.
    - agentgumshoe 4y ago
      You know this kind of leads towards communism... Which I think is the key problem with any kind of shared equality by force system, it will work nicely so long as no one running things decides they don't want it to, then it works really poorly.
      - turtledove 4y ago
        Looking at any single step on a path and rejecting it because the extreme end of the path isn't desirable is a quick way to never make any progress. We can improve things, we can do social good, and never slide to authoritarianism. (I assume you are talking about authoritarian communism vs, eg, council communism.)
        headsoup 4y ago
        Of course we can, but doing it at a society scale is very difficult and you have to be vary careful about who is on charge - or ends up with most influence - as history has consistently shown. I think it's easy (well reasonably) to do if resources are plentiful, but what do you do if there are more people than resources available to support them, who starts making the hard choices?
  - 4y ago
- marvin 4y ago
  Offer incentives for less desirable properties, eh? That sounds suspiciously like having different prices, just with extra steps.
  - turtledove 4y ago
    I suppose, in the same way negative interest rates are just interest rates with extra steps. Start from a position of "everyone gets a home" and then ask "in that case, how do we make sure folks who end up in less desirable homes are compensated?" I suppose you could frame it in the language of prices, but in this case the price is paid to the tenant.
    - sokoloff 4y ago
      Indeed, it would be a tragedy if someone’s taxpayer-provided housing was insufficiently desirable that we must create a bureau to determine how much additional largess they should receive. That system seems likely to end well.
- carom 4y ago
  How often would people have to move?
  - turtledove 4y ago
    When they wanted to. Forcing people to move is, imo, needlessly cruel.
    - carom 4y ago
      Isn't that unfair to someone else who wants to live there? It just seems like the first to arrive is the lucky one.
aqme28 4y ago
Is anyone in this thread proposing this kind of system? This is kind of an insane strawman. You can have a regulated market that still has prices. OP only proposed incentives to build and disincentives to hoard. Homes would still have prices, there would just be less scarcity.
- dahfizz 4y ago
  OP is claiming that housing is a commodity. If treated as a commodity, all houses would be priced the same. Then the reality sets in and you have to deal with the fact that some houses are more desirable than others, so you need to distribute them somehow without changing the price.

nivenkos 4y ago

Pricing? You can have the government / housing co-ops sell properties and just forbid private renting out in absentia.

paisawalla 4y ago
The point is that 1 KWh is 1KWh, but your home on the top floor of Millennium Tower is not equivalent to my home across from the 680 overpass. Housing is not a commodity like electricity, it's not fungible.

turtledove 4y ago

You could have a lottery, adjust prices within a regulated range, offer incentives for less desirable lots. You could reward developers for lots that have long wait lists and lots of interest, incentivizing developers who build places people want to live.

paisawalla 4y ago
Ah hmm, that's interesting. How have lotteries for highly desired goods worked out in other centrally planned regimes? Did we find a pretty broad socioeconomic distribution among dacha owners in the USSR?
- p1esk 4y ago
  Did we find a pretty broad socioeconomic distribution among dacha owners in the USSR? Yes.
headsoup 4y ago
What if someone less fortunate 'wins' the mansion on the beach. How do they afford the future upkeep?
- turtledove 4y ago
  This is a fair question, and one I'm not entirely satisfied that I have the answer for. Ideally, in my mind, I wouldn't own my home but I'd also be on the hook for maintenance and upkeep. But I recognize this does not meet everyone's needs and needs more thought. I would also hope that we would tend to build fewer mansions in favor of more multi family complexes, cohousing, coops, and small community oriented housing on the beach.
  - agentgumshoe 4y ago
    You know this kind of leads towards communism... Which I think is the key problem with any kind of shared equality by force system, it will work nicely so long as no one running things decides they don't want it to, then it works really poorly.
    - turtledove 4y ago
      Looking at any single step on a path and rejecting it because the extreme end of the path isn't desirable is a quick way to never make any progress. We can improve things, we can do social good, and never slide to authoritarianism. (I assume you are talking about authoritarian communism vs, eg, council communism.)
      - headsoup 4y ago
        Of course we can, but doing it at a society scale is very difficult and you have to be vary careful about who is on charge - or ends up with most influence - as history has consistently shown. I think it's easy (well reasonably) to do if resources are plentiful, but what do you do if there are more people than resources available to support them, who starts making the hard choices?
- 4y ago
marvin 4y ago
Offer incentives for less desirable properties, eh? That sounds suspiciously like having different prices, just with extra steps.
- turtledove 4y ago
  I suppose, in the same way negative interest rates are just interest rates with extra steps. Start from a position of "everyone gets a home" and then ask "in that case, how do we make sure folks who end up in less desirable homes are compensated?" I suppose you could frame it in the language of prices, but in this case the price is paid to the tenant.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    Indeed, it would be a tragedy if someone’s taxpayer-provided housing was insufficiently desirable that we must create a bureau to determine how much additional largess they should receive. That system seems likely to end well.
carom 4y ago
How often would people have to move?
- turtledove 4y ago
  When they wanted to. Forcing people to move is, imo, needlessly cruel.
  - carom 4y ago
    Isn't that unfair to someone else who wants to live there? It just seems like the first to arrive is the lucky one.

aqme28 4y ago

Is anyone in this thread proposing this kind of system? This is kind of an insane strawman. You can have a regulated market that still has prices. OP only proposed incentives to build and disincentives to hoard. Homes would still have prices, there would just be less scarcity.

dahfizz 4y ago
OP is claiming that housing is a commodity. If treated as a commodity, all houses would be priced the same. Then the reality sets in and you have to deal with the fact that some houses are more desirable than others, so you need to distribute them somehow without changing the price.