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Related article. The build nothing country: https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/the-build-nothing-country https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/the-build-nothing-coun

Related article. The build nothing country: https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/the-build-nothing-country https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/the-build-nothing-country "We no longer have the luxury of giving our people a shadow subsidy by freezing their neighborhoods and cities in amber. Spiraling housing costs in any city with real economic opportunity, a floundering energy transition, and the inexorable migration of manufacturing to more development-friendly countries have become so severe that we must dispense with our collective illusion that America will always look like it looked in 1975. Slashing the thicket of red tape that prevent development, and subordinating local interests to the needs of the nation itself, are no longer idle dreams — they are immediate necessities. If we insist on continuing to be the Build-Nothing Country, our once-mighty middle class will sink into a genteel poverty, and someone else will build the future on the bones of our civilization." And the top comment in this Reddit thread: https://old.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/11deckj/maybe_treating_housing_as_an_investment_was_a/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/11deckj/maybe_tr... "Consider how much of our modelling is based on the assumption of voluntary transactions. We say that all have a right to life and liberty, but is that really true? Every single space on planet Earth is owned by someone. In order to exist, one must occupy space. You can't exist outside the legal boundaries that those owners have every interest in upholding. As recently as a century ago, you could and two centuries ago it was actively encouraged. Any land you could occupy was yours to claim (risky as it may be). But now... From the very moment of birth you must find a landlord who is willing to let you exist. If that landlord demands a lifetime of labor in exchange, what choice do you really have? If no landlord voluntarily chooses, despite incentives to the contrary, to charge much less, what are you but a slave? There isn't an easy solution, we all share this world and it is impossible to live truly independently... But the solution is certainly not to demand a lifetime of toil at the whim of a handful of owning families in exchange for the right to exist. All the while creating profits that help them sustain their power over you."

gretch 4y ago
I don't think this is true. The actual raw amount of land on plant earth is abundant, it's just that much of it is unattractive to modern humans due to not being hooked up to internet/electricity and not near interesting things like shopping or concerts. I did a quick search and found many articles where states are encouraging people to homestead in unoccupied land as a form of development. (I will grant that this article was last updated 2014 and probably some things have changed, but it's hard for me to believe that it went from 100% to 0% over that time.) https://www.cnbc.com/2010/11/16/7-Towns-Where-Land-is-Free.html https://www.cnbc.com/2010/11/16/7-Towns-Where-Land-is-Free.h... I think it's actually really easy to go out into the middle of nowhere, have no master and claim some land, but this isn't really attractive as a way to live (actually homeless people do it downtown and even then it's kind of tolerated). People from 200 years ago didn't have a problem with it though...
- the_only_law 4y ago
  > I think it's actually really easy to go out into the middle of nowhere, have no master and claim some land Until you get arrested after someone saw you squatting/building/hunting/farming/whatever on some vacant field owned by some private entity or the BLM.
erik_seaberg 4y ago
The solution to “landlord demands a lifetime of labor” is to fix the shortage. Permit more construction and landlords will have to compete for tenants. We could easily build a hell of a lot more housing than we have today: https://twitter.com/conradhackett/status/1594939920166141952 https://twitter.com/conradhackett/status/1594939920166141952 Hell, there are cheap vacant houses out there right now, they just aren’t in the healthy labor markets where the working class need to live.
Dig1t 4y ago
>Every single space on planet Earth is owned by someone. I mean technically yes, but also not really. There are so many places in the US that are insanely cheap to live. You can buy a whole house in many small American cities and live the dream on a McDonalds wage, you could even pay it off early if you were frugal. I can find you plenty of houses in the US for sale right now for < $20,000. You can get multiple acres of space in West TX for < $2000. There is a lot of land available for people who want to build a life for themselves. Your argument only applies to fancy coastal cities where there is a large pool of wealthy (most people working in CA are in the top 1-2% income of the world) people competing for the same space. This leads to obvious questions such as: does everyone have a right to live in the same space? Should property rights exist at all in places where many people want to live? IMO, it's not slavery if people are trying to live in a place by choice. We should, of course, do everything we can to build more housing and provide space for as many as we can.

gretch 4y ago

I don't think this is true. The actual raw amount of land on plant earth is abundant, it's just that much of it is unattractive to modern humans due to not being hooked up to internet/electricity and not near interesting things like shopping or concerts. I did a quick search and found many articles where states are encouraging people to homestead in unoccupied land as a form of development. (I will grant that this article was last updated 2014 and probably some things have changed, but it's hard for me to believe that it went from 100% to 0% over that time.) https://www.cnbc.com/2010/11/16/7-Towns-Where-Land-is-Free.html https://www.cnbc.com/2010/11/16/7-Towns-Where-Land-is-Free.h... I think it's actually really easy to go out into the middle of nowhere, have no master and claim some land, but this isn't really attractive as a way to live (actually homeless people do it downtown and even then it's kind of tolerated). People from 200 years ago didn't have a problem with it though...

the_only_law 4y ago
> I think it's actually really easy to go out into the middle of nowhere, have no master and claim some land Until you get arrested after someone saw you squatting/building/hunting/farming/whatever on some vacant field owned by some private entity or the BLM.

erik_seaberg 4y ago

The solution to “landlord demands a lifetime of labor” is to fix the shortage. Permit more construction and landlords will have to compete for tenants. We could easily build a hell of a lot more housing than we have today: https://twitter.com/conradhackett/status/1594939920166141952 https://twitter.com/conradhackett/status/1594939920166141952 Hell, there are cheap vacant houses out there right now, they just aren’t in the healthy labor markets where the working class need to live.

Dig1t 4y ago

>Every single space on planet Earth is owned by someone. I mean technically yes, but also not really. There are so many places in the US that are insanely cheap to live. You can buy a whole house in many small American cities and live the dream on a McDonalds wage, you could even pay it off early if you were frugal. I can find you plenty of houses in the US for sale right now for < $20,000. You can get multiple acres of space in West TX for < $2000. There is a lot of land available for people who want to build a life for themselves. Your argument only applies to fancy coastal cities where there is a large pool of wealthy (most people working in CA are in the top 1-2% income of the world) people competing for the same space. This leads to obvious questions such as: does everyone have a right to live in the same space? Should property rights exist at all in places where many people want to live? IMO, it's not slavery if people are trying to live in a place by choice. We should, of course, do everything we can to build more housing and provide space for as many as we can.