Can the Left be refashioned into something decent? Can it coalesce around something that will not repel large swaths of people? Can it find a new, more positive direction?
There’s no going back to “the means of production.” Working classes and boutique identities of pansexual, polyamorous gender-queers cannot coexist. Non-binary pansexuals only exist because they own the means of production and they aren’t going to be sharing them with plumbers and grocery clerks. The whole point of being a pansexual gender-queer is to signal contempt for the plumbers, to domineer and eviscerate them.
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“The whole point of being a pansexual gender-queer is to signal contempt for the plumbers, to domineer and eviscerate them.”
Which is why there’s no future in it. We are actively, currently, eviscerating the plumbers.
But we all still depend on the plumbing being installed correctly, and kept in good working order.
Can’t have both.
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Yes. These boutique sex fads aren’t necessary for the functioning of society. Plumbers are. Even the most pansexual of the genderqueers need the potty while absolutely nobody needs the genderqueers. Plus, boutique identities are always at war with each other (e.g. lesbians and transgenders) in a way that plumbers and grocery clerks aren’t. Where no solidarity is possible, no political movement can exist.
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Technically, if the plumbers own their own tools, they own the means of production and are capturing all the surplus value.
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We have found an interesting way to effectively neuter owning the means of production here: you own your tools, but you cannot own your home, your place of business, or the parking spot where you leave your work van overnight. This is why distributism puts so much importance on the broad distribution and availability of land ownership.
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This is a pretty standard problem with development. Once all the land is owned, there is no “empty” land to expand into.
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Yes. I think that to avoid overcentralization and subsequent collapse, there need to be built-in disincentives to any single entity owning, say, thousands of acres of farmland, or large numbers of residential houses. I’ve been wondering if some combination of a hard cap on acreage/dwellings, and a progressive property tax (0% for the one dwelling you live in, perhaps up to a limited square footage and acreage, scaling up for every additional dwelling you own, or something similar).
It’s not without complications– livestock grazing comes to mind– and of course there’s no way it’d happen. But I’d love to see *any* policy moving in that general direction, like forcing investment funds to divest of real estate holdings, raising both property tax, and homestead exemptions…
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I think one of the biggest problems is people treating their houses as an investment rather than just a place to live.
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That’s a bubble phenomenon. I think it’s going away within the next two years (possibly much sooner), no matter what anybody does, because they are running out of solvent buyers, and everything’s overpriced by something like 40% right now. More in hot markets, less elsewhere. Maybe.
The fedgov has been hiding the extent of the problem for years: feeding money into fed-backed mortgage programs like FHA, to prevent delinquent borrowers from being foreclosed on (this has been propping up overinflated prices at the low end particularly). A lot depends on how long they keep that charade up– we are hoping it gets the axe. Making student debt collectable again is going to have some weird repercussions in the near term: a huge number of people are about to have their credit ratings dropped in the toilet. There’s been some murmuring about ending Section 8 and letting interest rates rise as well. Much depends on how many of those things happen, and how soon. I’d like to see mortgage rates hit 8% again.
If admin actually follows through on significantly reducing the illegal migrant population, that’ll make a huge difference on the lower end of the market.
Also keeping half an eye on metrics like credit card debt and car loan defaults (loans that lots of people have, but which the FHA isn’t jiggering to hide problems with the program). And, you know, boomers (the biggest homeowning demographic), are dying.
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methylethyl
History suggests that one wants to be very, very cautious when considering government “assistance” to help solve problems. My hunch is that the open market is about to resolve the problem of those groups that were attempting to control residential housing and rentals ;-D
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For sure, all “government solutions” ideas predicated on the very dodgy idea that government’s aim is human flourishing.
Markets are about the best we can do, for most things.
I do sincerely hope a good hard market correction is in the works. Have some doubts about whether the market will be permitted to do its thing, and how much damage will be done in the attempt to prevent it.
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