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First, the very idea of the "middle class" is capitalist propaganda. It's meant to divide the working class. It serves no other purpose. It serves to be aspirat

by jmyeet 1y ago

First, the very idea of the "middle class" is capitalist propaganda. It's meant to divide the working class. It serves no other purpose. It serves to be aspirational for people to participate in a system they won't benefit from while allowing the slightly well off to blame the less well off for their own circumstances. Second, the voters are absolutely complicit in this sytem because they think they're benefitting. But they're not. The ultra-wealthy are reaping the rewards. Example: you buy a house for $200k. Because of house horading and constrained supply and policy changes you vote for that house is worth $800k after 15 years. You think you've made money so you support everything that's going on. But you haven't. Why? Because you still own exactly one housing unit's worth of wealth. You have to live somewhere and every house costs $800k now. So then you think "maybe I need to own multiple properties" but you're barely better off. As for the rest, you're confusing a whole bunch of different things. "Abundance neoliberalism" (as per Ezra Klein) is just repackaged Reagen-era trickle down economics, designed to make status quo Democrats somehow feel good about being indistinguishable from Republicans. Not sure why you're associating NIMBYism with leftism. They're diametrically opposed. For one, trust leftists would abolish private property (as distinct from personal property). You get to own your house. You just don't get to hoard land. I do partially agree about Texas though. Texas's property tax system, at least up until recent years, is significantly better than California's (as one example). In Texas, seniors can defer property tax increases until their death (when they'll be collected from the estate) giving people a choice to downsize or not. In California, you can inherit preferential property tax rates because the voters voted in Prop 13 that allows Disney to pay property tax rates set in the 1960s on the backs of seniors not getting kicked out of their homes. I'm not sure what your objection to the "neoliberal" is. If you support the hoarding of private property and are pro-capitalist then, by definition, you're a neoliberal. That's definitional, not a perjorative.

energy123 1y ago
> Example: you buy a house for $200k. Because of house horading and constrained supply and policy changes you vote for that house is worth $800k after 15 years. You think you've made money so you support everything that's going on. But you haven't. Why? Because you still own exactly one housing unit's worth of wealth. You have to live somewhere and every house costs $800k now. I agree with you on this. > Not sure why you're associating NIMBYism with leftism. They're diametrically opposed. That may be your interpretation of the underlying philosophy, but in practice, leftist politicians turn out to be more NIMBY than center-left liberal politicians. I'm not so interested in No True Scotsman type appeals on this point. > "Abundance neoliberalism" (as per Ezra Klein) is just repackaged Reagen-era trickle down economics It's laughable to equate "social democracy and targeted industrial policy but with less red tape when you try to build something" with Reaganite policies. > I'm not sure what your objection to the "neoliberal" is. The deployment of the word "neoliberal" is almost always a slur and a misunderstanding. People use it as a catch-all category to mean "status quo thing I don't like", wrongly bundling up heterogeneous things that are vastly different. It's the left's version of "uniparty". A thought-terminating rhetorical device, not to be used in any serious analysis.
- jmyeet 1y ago
  I suspect you might be confusing "leftism" with "liberalism with progressive aesthetics". This isn't a "No True Scotsman" type situation. If one supports private property, one is definitionally not a leftist. People love to call themselves "progressive" (moreso than "leftist", which has nasty socialist overtones; thank you Red Scare) because it makes them sound and feel tolerant and caring. But leftism isn't about social issues directly. It's economics. The leftist solution to housing is social housing, meaning the government builds, maintains and supplies a significant percentage of the housing to ensure that everyone has a roof over their head. Vienna is an excellent example of this where the majority (61% IIRC) of all housing is "social housing". 50+ years ago the UK almost entirely got rid of landlords [1] and then along came Thatcher. "Abundance" is indistinguishable from trickle down economics. The core tenet of "Abundance" is that if there is so much then everybody will get something, basically. How is that not trickle down economics [2]? "Abundance" doesn't challenge the status quo. It reinforces it. So Ezra Klein gets a ton of media and invited to all the good parties and allows liberals to feel good about supporting fundamentally right-wing policies. And "red tape" here is just another way of saying "deregulation". The defining characteristics of neoliberalism are "free market capitalism" and "deregulation". I don't really care if people misuse "neoliberal". It still has meaning. It sounds like you just don't like being (correctly) labelled as such. That's really no different to people saying things like "the far Left" or "the radical left" about the Democrats, which is beyond laughable. [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/mar/19/end-of-landlords-surprisingly-simple-solution-to-uk-housing-crisis https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/mar/19/end-of-... [2]: https://www.deanprestonsf.com/blog/abundance https://www.deanprestonsf.com/blog/abundance
  - energy123 1y ago
    It's not trickle down economics because social democracy is not trickle down economics. Industrial policy is not trickle down economics. Increasing taxes on the wealthy is not trickle down economics. Funding public goods is not trickle down economics. Taxing externalities is not trickle down economics. Subsidizing supply is not trickle down economics. This is the problem with the leftist worldview where everything is either "neoliberalism" or "not neoliberal ism". It's an overly coarse worldview that doesn't facilitate useful analysis, it impedes your ability to disambiguate between different things. If you think cutting bad regulations as part of the policy mix is by definition Reaganite and therefore bad, then you really need to reevaluate things because not all regulations are good by virtue of them being regulations! "But leftism isn't about social issues directly. It's economics." I am talking about people like self styled socialist Dean Preston (the guy you linked, who is a NIMBY that made California's housing crisis worse) or the various Greens parties across the anglosphere who occupy the leftmost end of the political electorate. Whether we label them as leftists or not isn't a hill I'm going to die on. The point is that the leftmost end of the spectrum are more likely to be NIMBYs and have some very wacky and economically illiterate ideas about housing policy than the center left. And I'm someone who supports social housing as part of the mix like what Carney is planning for Canada.

by jmyeet 1y ago

energy123 1y ago

> Example: you buy a house for $200k. Because of house horading and constrained supply and policy changes you vote for that house is worth $800k after 15 years. You think you've made money so you support everything that's going on. But you haven't. Why? Because you still own exactly one housing unit's worth of wealth. You have to live somewhere and every house costs $800k now. I agree with you on this. > Not sure why you're associating NIMBYism with leftism. They're diametrically opposed. That may be your interpretation of the underlying philosophy, but in practice, leftist politicians turn out to be more NIMBY than center-left liberal politicians. I'm not so interested in No True Scotsman type appeals on this point. > "Abundance neoliberalism" (as per Ezra Klein) is just repackaged Reagen-era trickle down economics It's laughable to equate "social democracy and targeted industrial policy but with less red tape when you try to build something" with Reaganite policies. > I'm not sure what your objection to the "neoliberal" is. The deployment of the word "neoliberal" is almost always a slur and a misunderstanding. People use it as a catch-all category to mean "status quo thing I don't like", wrongly bundling up heterogeneous things that are vastly different. It's the left's version of "uniparty". A thought-terminating rhetorical device, not to be used in any serious analysis.

jmyeet 1y ago
I suspect you might be confusing "leftism" with "liberalism with progressive aesthetics". This isn't a "No True Scotsman" type situation. If one supports private property, one is definitionally not a leftist. People love to call themselves "progressive" (moreso than "leftist", which has nasty socialist overtones; thank you Red Scare) because it makes them sound and feel tolerant and caring. But leftism isn't about social issues directly. It's economics. The leftist solution to housing is social housing, meaning the government builds, maintains and supplies a significant percentage of the housing to ensure that everyone has a roof over their head. Vienna is an excellent example of this where the majority (61% IIRC) of all housing is "social housing". 50+ years ago the UK almost entirely got rid of landlords [1] and then along came Thatcher. "Abundance" is indistinguishable from trickle down economics. The core tenet of "Abundance" is that if there is so much then everybody will get something, basically. How is that not trickle down economics [2]? "Abundance" doesn't challenge the status quo. It reinforces it. So Ezra Klein gets a ton of media and invited to all the good parties and allows liberals to feel good about supporting fundamentally right-wing policies. And "red tape" here is just another way of saying "deregulation". The defining characteristics of neoliberalism are "free market capitalism" and "deregulation". I don't really care if people misuse "neoliberal". It still has meaning. It sounds like you just don't like being (correctly) labelled as such. That's really no different to people saying things like "the far Left" or "the radical left" about the Democrats, which is beyond laughable. [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/mar/19/end-of-landlords-surprisingly-simple-solution-to-uk-housing-crisis https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/mar/19/end-of-... [2]: https://www.deanprestonsf.com/blog/abundance https://www.deanprestonsf.com/blog/abundance
- energy123 1y ago
  It's not trickle down economics because social democracy is not trickle down economics. Industrial policy is not trickle down economics. Increasing taxes on the wealthy is not trickle down economics. Funding public goods is not trickle down economics. Taxing externalities is not trickle down economics. Subsidizing supply is not trickle down economics. This is the problem with the leftist worldview where everything is either "neoliberalism" or "not neoliberal ism". It's an overly coarse worldview that doesn't facilitate useful analysis, it impedes your ability to disambiguate between different things. If you think cutting bad regulations as part of the policy mix is by definition Reaganite and therefore bad, then you really need to reevaluate things because not all regulations are good by virtue of them being regulations! "But leftism isn't about social issues directly. It's economics." I am talking about people like self styled socialist Dean Preston (the guy you linked, who is a NIMBY that made California's housing crisis worse) or the various Greens parties across the anglosphere who occupy the leftmost end of the political electorate. Whether we label them as leftists or not isn't a hill I'm going to die on. The point is that the leftmost end of the spectrum are more likely to be NIMBYs and have some very wacky and economically illiterate ideas about housing policy than the center left. And I'm someone who supports social housing as part of the mix like what Carney is planning for Canada.