Comment on Landlords are parasites
return2ozma@lemmy.world 1 month agoHousing is a human right, not an investment. Nationalize housing
Socialized housing isn’t an overnight project. It starts with regulating the current housing marketing and prioritizing the take down of corporate slumlords. It starts with revising zoning laws, promoting higher density housing and multifamily homes, and creating walkable and accessible neighborhoods for all.
I get the idealism from Lemmy, but this is also it’s pitfall. Anything less than a leftist utopia is not worth working towards, and so we sit in righteous inaction.
It’s not a utopia, housing has been nationalized successfully in several countries, with the result of the abolition of homelessness, extremely affordable rent (think 3% of monthly incomes), and evictions essentially not existing.
History is path dependent. Not every country has the same literacy rates, civic participation, income inequality, intergenerational wealth, social inertia, and so on.
What is rational and common place in one country is radical progressivism in another.
You can do what is ideal, or you can do what works. You can deny a reality of systemic barriers to affordable housing, or accept that they are real and must be tackled one at a time.
In an ideal world, yes, there would be no landlords. In the real world, property, laws, the economy, and people are so deeply intertwined that to propose the elimination of landlords is about as facetious as eliminating bankers because of exploitation in banking.
I don’t know why you keep bringing up the word “ideal”. Marxists are opposed to idealism, we’re staunch materialists. Saying that “things change over time and place” doesn’t automatically negate historical examples , and following those historical examples doesn’t imply not achieving progressive victories over time.
You claim to follow the path that works, but that’s what the western left has been following for the past 50 years and look where that led us.
Housing is a human right, not an investment.
Yes and yes 1000%
Nationalize housing
Fuck no.
Social housing in Vienna
Ok? That’s not all housing which to me is nationalizing. All countries have some concept of co-op or subsidized housing which is owned and administered by the government. It can and does exist in parallel. Should the government be doing more of it? I would argue yes.
Why not though? The experiments done in housing nationalization have been extremely successful in abolishing homelessness and guaranteeing access to affordable housing. In Cuba, if you study in (completely free) public university, the state assigns you a flat at no cost. In the Soviet Union, housing used to cost 3% of monthly incomes back in the 1970s.
Imagine the possibilities that we could get with 50+ years of technological and industrial development if we nationalized housing in the west…
do you have any actual argument for why it’s bad?
Based on human nature over thousands of years the prevailing history shows us that “we” do not want to administer what we build. Governments worldwide forever have struggled with Capex vs Opex.
For that reason, I do not want government getting into the habit of owning shit. Look at Russia or anywhere in the eastern block for the infrastructure that is literally crumbling. It’s all because we do not do Opex. We never have and nothing tells me we ever will. Working in corporate I can tell you it’s a struggle there too. Human nature does not prioritize Opex.
So the question is, how would this be any different?
I personally believe the government should be building more housing not the market because the market wants money and some things like starter homes do not make money. That does not mean I want the government owning and administering homes. Build them, sell them in the market and let the people who own it decide what to do.
Do not let non-citizens or businesses in any way own anything.
Government should be putting in place the rules and enforcing them but that’s it. The problem is they don’t want to enforce shit.
There’s the other issue. People are lazy AF and what’s worse is most people refuse to acknowledge it which means most people are hypocrisy too lol
Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
Based
eugenevdebs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
Ozma always is!