CAPITALISM FAN: See, the problem with setting 'fair prices' for goods is that you create shortages! But if you just let THE MARKET (TM) set the prices, there are no shortages ever!
THE MARKET (TM): Hi so we raised the cost of houses to ONE MILLION DOLLARS. And we didn't build any new ones because that would lower the price. Literally fewer people can now live in houses.
CAPITALISM FAN: That's not a shortage. Shortages are what affect millionaires, not morally bad poor people who eat avocados.
@natecull I'd say the last bit would be more like:
CAPITALISM FAN: There's no shortage. If there were, then the price would be going through the roof!
REGULAR HUMAN: ...but isn't $1m kind of a ridiculously large amount to pay for a house?
CAPITALISM FAN: Don't be silly; that's just how the market has priced it. If you can't afford it, then don't buy one. It's all completely voluntary!
@natecull not a correct critique. The market floats on top of land use policies and law, often engineered to increase house price. Housing is heavily regulated in all sorts of ways.
There are good critiques of capitalism: I don't think this one is even wrong
@pnathan and yet, somehow, mysteriously, despite nothing ever being capitalism's fault, capitalism continues to make housing unaffordable
capitalism can never fail us
capitalism can only be failed
our only choice is to make capitalism tougher, sterner, harder, purer
we salute capitalism
@pnathan Nope, what I'm blaming capitalism for is *the housing market*. Which sees houses as an investment good - and they are specifically marketed and sold as such.
New Zealand has seen house prices double in around the last ten years, and triple around the last 20.
Our government has been center-right during the last 8 years, and presided over this disaster. They had a 'hands off, market knows best' approach, claiming the problem would self correct.
It is not and will not.
@pnathan Also: It is very interesting that you use the word 'aristocrat'.
A new aristocracy, based on ownership of land like the old one, is EXACTLY what we are creating.
An interesting fact: in New Zealand local elections, landlords *can now vote multiple times*, once for each ward in which they own a house.
Mere tenants can only vote once.
@pnathan Yep, and what scares me is it's not just the USA. It's Canada, New Zealand, Australia, UK all at once.
In AUS/NZ we tend to blame Chinese investment money, and there has been a flood of it seeking safer havens than the mainland.
But it's also people terrified by the prospect of self-funding their retirement. You need at least two houses per couple to survive after 60, apparently.
I don't know how we get out of this, frankly.
@pnathan But this whole situation gives the lie to what we were taught as orthodoxy in the 1990s: that the rich getting richer would also make the poor richer.
In housing, we're seeing a literal zero-sum economic game playing out.
*There is only so much land*. When prices of a limited asset rise, obviously those who own it get richer AND those who rent it get poorer.
It's a double edged sword, and it was totally predictable.
We were told this is exactly what wouldn't happen. It was a lie.
@natecull I don't know much about promises. I was born in 83. When I was 23, the stock/ market imploded because of dumb bankers.
I am sort of an urbanist geek, so I get very aware of how much the default is a construct of the previous generations of voters.
Nate Cull (.social)
JessSloan
Woozle Hypertwin (political)
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