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"I'm not doing any harm," you say. "I just want to keep what I own, that's all." You own! You are like someone who sits down in a theater and keeps everyone els
by hprotagonist 4y ago
"I'm not doing any harm," you say. "I just want to keep what I own, that's all." You own! You are like someone who sits down in a theater and keeps everyone else away, saying that what is there for everyone's use is your own...If everyone took only what they needed and gave the rest to those in need, there would be no such thing as rich and poor. After all, didn't you come into life naked, and won't you return naked to the earth?
Ambrose, c. 350
- seydor 4y agoarguing against owning your home is arguing in favor of rent-seeking
- lifeisstillgood 4y agoThe implication of the ancient Roman theatre is that the person is trying to make a public space (theatre) private (their own use / enjoyment). The implication being that the only rent seeker will be the state i assume
- sgc 4y agoThat is an argument against greedy hoarding, not home ownership.
- andrepd 4y agoThe parable is very explicitly contrasting taking what you need / taking one seat at the theatre / owning a home to live in, with taking everything and depriving others of the use of what should be common / taking all the seats at the theatre / hoarding homes to extract economic rent, respectively. I'm 99% sure you understood the point too.
- luxuryballs 4y agoI’m not sure there’s a practical or fair way to quantify what someone needs, how can that be measured? Or worse, enforced?
- unlikelymordant 4y agoIn general i think its not about enforcement, but incentives e.g. designing a tax system that penalises owning many homes.
- luxuryballs 4y agobut what if you have a valid plan in the work for the many homes? I think it is a huge violation of privacy for the government to need to vet you on the reasons for your private property
- closeparen 4y ago"Taking one seat at the theater" is something any single family owner-occupier could learn from: - Houses are way bigger than they need to be - Their footprints are enlarged further by useless setbacks and lawns - A single household monopolizes this footprint for the entire vertical dimension
- ZeroGravitas 4y agoActually, in most of the world, owning your home (really the land underneath it that is zoned as residential) is a form of rent-seeking, which is why 'land value tax' taxes that economic rent (money earned without providing anything in return). Unfortunately, people have somehow been convinced that house price inflation is good because their house has more and more value, like a wheelbarrow of inflated currency and that the only fix is for everyone to buy their own house/land, which only worsens the problem.
- bottled_poe 4y agoIt’s cute, but not a very practical philosophy though. Most valued resources are physically finite. Who decides how beachfront properties are allocated? Who decides who should clean the toilets?
- notpachet 4y agoMaybe we should all take turns cleaning the toilets. Like jury duty.
- lezojeda 4y agoIf someone is willing to do it for money and I'm willing to pay them for it, why should I do it?
- javajosh 4y agoMoney is a superpower, one of mankind's most potent inventions, and just like with anything of great power it is learning to restrain yourself, to recognize when it is and is not appropriate. Self-restraint in the use of great power is what makes the difference between good and evil. With money, all actions take on a dimension of moral hazard. You pay for a thing, but you do not do the work, so you don't know how it is done and what effect the work has on the worker or on the world at large. If the altruistic angle doesn't appeal, consider the selfish angle: money divorces you from the reality of an act, making you less able to do for yourself. Like the Amish, I suggest that you carefully consider what you pay for and why, rather than just decide based on whether you can pay for it.
- notpachet 4y agoYour question presupposes that the arrangement where certain people have to do shit jobs to survive, and others don't, is desirable. It works out fine for you individually, but the more charitable and humane arrangement is to spread the shit jobs around so no one bears the full brunt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
- 4y ago
- rufus_foreman 4y ago>> "If everyone took only what they needed and gave the rest to those in need, there would be no such thing as rich and poor" This theory is called communism and it is one of the deadliest ideas known to man. That said, there's an element of truth to the statement. There would be no such thing as rich and poor, there would only be poor.
- hprotagonist 4y agothat’s an extremely anachronistic reading.
- rufus_foreman 4y agoYou're quoting an author from the 300's in a comment thread about today's housing market. That's an actual anachronism.
- jventura 4y agoI think you read too much between the lines! To me it says that you should only get as much as you need, not more, not less, and leave the rest for the others..
- therealdrag0 4y agoIsn’t the “should” there what communism tries to enforce?