3 ms·

There was plenty of housing before the Thatcherite "right to buy". Pretending it was socialist politics that broke it is moronic.

danny_codes 2y ago
Exactly. Housing is the big cost of living increase. A perfectly unregulated economy with finite land will drive land prices up to the margin of cultivation (the margin at which one would move to a less desirable piece of land). As population and productivity grows this results in ever higher land rents. In the limit rents will be exactly the edge of what people can pay.
gottorf 2y ago
Insofar as "socialist politics" make it harder for the supply of housing to rise to match demand, it is not moronic at all. Places in the UK where housing stock grows with population don't have it as bad as places that don't[0], i.e. London. Thatcher left office in 1990. The population of Greater London has grown by 44% since then. I don't think there has been a single decade since where the growth of housing stock kept up with the growth of people. Why blame Thatcher for this? [0]: https://ifs.org.uk/articles/england-has-poor-record-building-homes-where-they-are-needed https://ifs.org.uk/articles/england-has-poor-record-building...
- seabass-labrax 2y ago
  Alongside Thatcher's 'Right to Buy' policy that reduced the stock of social housing, there were also restrictions on how much new housing could be bought or built by local councils to replenish the availability of social housing. These restrictions had more or less remained the same until very recently. It was only during the Johnson government that the restrictions started to be lifted. Of course, the current Labour government are attempting to once again build new social housing, but it is easy to see why people look back and see Thatcher as being the cause of those three decades of social housing shortages.

3 ms·

There was plenty of housing before the Thatcherite "right to buy". Pretending it was socialist politics that broke it is moronic.

by olddustytrail 2y ago

danny_codes 2y ago
Exactly. Housing is the big cost of living increase. A perfectly unregulated economy with finite land will drive land prices up to the margin of cultivation (the margin at which one would move to a less desirable piece of land). As population and productivity grows this results in ever higher land rents. In the limit rents will be exactly the edge of what people can pay.
gottorf 2y ago
Insofar as "socialist politics" make it harder for the supply of housing to rise to match demand, it is not moronic at all. Places in the UK where housing stock grows with population don't have it as bad as places that don't[0], i.e. London. Thatcher left office in 1990. The population of Greater London has grown by 44% since then. I don't think there has been a single decade since where the growth of housing stock kept up with the growth of people. Why blame Thatcher for this? [0]: https://ifs.org.uk/articles/england-has-poor-record-building-homes-where-they-are-needed https://ifs.org.uk/articles/england-has-poor-record-building...
- seabass-labrax 2y ago
  Alongside Thatcher's 'Right to Buy' policy that reduced the stock of social housing, there were also restrictions on how much new housing could be bought or built by local councils to replenish the availability of social housing. These restrictions had more or less remained the same until very recently. It was only during the Johnson government that the restrictions started to be lifted. Of course, the current Labour government are attempting to once again build new social housing, but it is easy to see why people look back and see Thatcher as being the cause of those three decades of social housing shortages.