Comment on England worst place in developed world to find housing, says report
irmoz@reddthat.com 8 months agoA democration institution run by the people.
Comment on England worst place in developed world to find housing, says report
irmoz@reddthat.com 8 months agoA democration institution run by the people.
BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social 8 months ago
Okay, let's explore this. Everyone votes for themselves to live in London's best penthouse. Crafty clever me, expecting this situation, bribe a few of my friends to vote for me to live in the penthouse instead. Perhaps I slip them some money under the table - or we've abolished money - I promise to do some amount of work for them, give them something valuable I have, promise to cook for them, whatever. So, I've got the penthouse. Yay democracy?
Or, to expand more, lots of people recognize this strategy, so everyone with some degree of wealth starts buying votes anywhere they can get them. Ultimately, the people with the most wealth wind up getting the best housing as loads of goods and favors get exchanged. At this point, oops, you have a market again.
Now, you might just say that it should be randomized. But in that case, if I get assigned a shitty unit, perhaps I might just go to someone who got a nice unit and offer them an exchange of some kind. Perhaps I don't have any valuable goods, but I'm a talented painter and offer to paint them several nice pieces. Ultimately, they find it to be an acceptable deal and agree to swap apartments. Lots and lots of people would be doing the same thing, and as the government wouldn't actually be able to monitory everyone's location all the time to ensure they're living where they're supposed to be, once again, you have a market.
irmoz@reddthat.com 8 months ago
That’s a severe lack of imagination concerning democracy, man.
BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social 8 months ago
Hey, I'm wide open here. Please, share your ideas. By what process is this agreement reached? Given a scarcity of nice apartments, who gets them, and how is that decided? Genuinely, I'm curious as to what kind of system you're imagining, particularly given that, by definition, it has to make most people content, and given a scarce resource, most people won't get what they want, so some other criteria has to decide who gets what.
irmoz@reddthat.com 8 months ago
You also need to consider that housing isn’t just some static thing, especially in anything resembling socialism. There will also be much work from people in renovating existing housing and building new houses. I would imagine mansions being divided into apartments, slums being rebuilt or fixed into decent homes, and this level of connection to each others, and to the labour of building a better world, will also influence how people decide who gets what and who lives where.
In the democratic process, we start with the general agreement that everyone deserves somewhere to live. From there, we get more and more specific, but never so specific as to say “this person deserves this house”. For example, families need space for each member of the family. Individuals need less space, but there is room to argue you may need space for working if you’re a craftsperson. Standards and precedents.
Also consider that this is transitional and temporary. This is how to get from marketised housing, toward communal housing. This initial phase wouldn’t describe moving forward from there. Once these general rules are in place, they won’t be static. Once everyone is housed, the priority is no longer getting everyone housed, but making living easier, including continuing the work of raising the standard of living, renovating homes, moving people into nicer homes, and so on. This will settle into a comfortable standard for everyone, and can build from there.