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>Did the serfs get free housing under feudalism? Otherwise you can't really compare how much the serfs were taxed compared to how much people today spent on ren

by pydry 3y ago

>Did the serfs get free housing under feudalism? Otherwise you can't really compare how much the serfs were taxed compared to how much people today spent on rent. Yours is the same misunderstanding that leads people to mistakenly think $40k shipping container houses are an answer to the housing crisis. It was always about land - its intrinsic scarcity and who gets to hoard it. Probably 10% of my rent is actually paying for the building. Mayfair is hoarded by one man and his "right" to its rents stems entirely from violence - his ancestor helping William the Conqueror conquer England. In this sense feudalism was kept around the whole time - like herpes. Control and ownership of land dictates the flow of parasitically extracted wealth - it's much the same whether I'm paying 2900 per month to a landlord in Maida Vale who doesn't have to work thanks to me (but somehow still can't be bothered to call out a plumber) or if I'm paying 1/3 of my income as a peasant to my lord. >All of that funds social services Social services have been severely eroded in the UK while the % spent on rent and taxes has sharply increased. The NHS is a wreck compared to what it used to be in the early 2000s and the social housing list is DECADES long. These already eroded institutions are a hangover from the decades when unions has real power in the UK and in the next 10 years they will be eroded still further.

gruez 3y ago
>Yours is the same misunderstanding that leads people to think $40k shipping container houses are the answer to the housing crisis. It was always about land, all along. That might be the case, but the apples to oranges comparison by the parent poster is hardly convincing evidence. >Social services are being severely eroded in the UK while the % spent on rent and taxes has sharply increased. The NHS is a wreck compared to what it used to be in the early 2000s and the social housing list is DECADES long. That can't possibly be due to other factors, like the aftereffects of the covid-19 pandemic, or all the baby boomers retiring and requiring way more medical care? Not to mention that adjusting for inflation, population size and demographic structure, NHS spending is actually up since the early 2000s[1]. [1] https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/the-past-present-and-future-of-government-spending-on-the-nhs https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/the-past-present-...
- pydry 3y ago
  >That might be the case, but the apples to oranges comparison More like satsumas to oranges. Land is still the key component of wealth extraction irrespective of whether the rents come with a house or without. >That can't possibly be due to other factors, like the aftereffects of the covid-19 pandemic, or all the baby boomers No, because those are not other factors they are scapegoats. Covid didn't ruin the NHS - that had been happening for years - covid just exposed the underlying frailty of the system and was an excuse to jam even MORE corruption into the system. Baby boomers retiring is not responsible for an increasing share of the country's income being dedicated to rents. I'm excited to see what kind of new scapegoats our leaders will come up with to rally the simple-minded once covid becomes distant history and the boomers all die off. Hopefully we won't get a re-run of that "it's all the [ insert ethnicity here ]'s fault" thing from the 1930s.

by pydry 3y ago

gruez 3y ago

>Yours is the same misunderstanding that leads people to think $40k shipping container houses are the answer to the housing crisis. It was always about land, all along. That might be the case, but the apples to oranges comparison by the parent poster is hardly convincing evidence. >Social services are being severely eroded in the UK while the % spent on rent and taxes has sharply increased. The NHS is a wreck compared to what it used to be in the early 2000s and the social housing list is DECADES long. That can't possibly be due to other factors, like the aftereffects of the covid-19 pandemic, or all the baby boomers retiring and requiring way more medical care? Not to mention that adjusting for inflation, population size and demographic structure, NHS spending is actually up since the early 2000s[1]. [1] https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/the-past-present-and-future-of-government-spending-on-the-nhs https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/the-past-present-...

pydry 3y ago
>That might be the case, but the apples to oranges comparison More like satsumas to oranges. Land is still the key component of wealth extraction irrespective of whether the rents come with a house or without. >That can't possibly be due to other factors, like the aftereffects of the covid-19 pandemic, or all the baby boomers No, because those are not other factors they are scapegoats. Covid didn't ruin the NHS - that had been happening for years - covid just exposed the underlying frailty of the system and was an excuse to jam even MORE corruption into the system. Baby boomers retiring is not responsible for an increasing share of the country's income being dedicated to rents. I'm excited to see what kind of new scapegoats our leaders will come up with to rally the simple-minded once covid becomes distant history and the boomers all die off. Hopefully we won't get a re-run of that "it's all the [ insert ethnicity here ]'s fault" thing from the 1930s.