Housing policy megathread

[DGuller]

I don't get the question.  Who's "you" here, what is the charity?

You is the taxpayer and charity is not evicting someone when they are late on rent.

I didn't say anything about not evicting someone when they're late on rent.  I was talking about protecting people who did fulfill all reasonable obligations, but whom landlord wants to get rid of anyway for various reasons.

[Admiral Yi]

I didn't say anything about not evicting someone when they're late on rent.  I was talking about protecting people who did fulfill all reasonable obligations, but whom landlord wants to get rid of anyway for various reasons.

Gotcha.  My bad.

[Sheilbh]

That's my point.  Two wolves desire a policy goal and the sheep gets to pay for it.  Similar to the price gouging case.

Do you really find that convincing or care about it?

I mean first of all the sheep has a fuckton of money to shape the opinion of the wolves and historically in the history of democratic societies, there is one thirty year period when the "wolves" (or everyday people, as I'd call them) enforced a political and economic model that worked against "sheep" (or plutocrats). In the case of the US there's an overlap of at most 10 years between having full democratic rights and that economic model.

But also - yes, that's how democracy works. Obviously political opinions aren't ingrained and inherited, like species (a better example is maybe two meat eaters and a vegetarian trying to work out an order in a restaurant) - but ultimately if you want to win you need to (within the rules of your system) convince a majority.

And I'm not really sure what the alternative is - protected status for the scheduled class of *checks notes* landlords and owners of capital? This feels like the same argument against democracy that we've heard since the Greeks and it was wrong then and democracy was right and it's wrong now and democracy is right. Make the argument and win support to form part of a majority.

[Valmy]

When will somebody think of us poor landlords? 

[Jacob]

Yeah rent control is about limiting the amount of rent you can charge for a property, and - I think even more to the point- limiting how much you can increase rent for existing tenants.

[Sheilbh]

When will somebody think of us poor landlords? 

This is why I hate rights based discourse (kind of joking...kind of not)

See also the recent Dutch Supreme Court decision (the second of its type) that the proposed Dutch wealth tax breaches the European Convention of Human Rights

[Admiral Yi]

Do you really find that convincing or care about it?

I mean first of all the sheep has a fuckton of money to shape the opinion of the wolves and historically in the history of democratic societies, there is one thirty year period when the "wolves" (or everyday people, as I'd call them) enforced a political and economic model that worked against "sheep" (or plutocrats). In the case of the US there's an overlap of at most 10 years between having full democratic rights and that economic model.

But also - yes, that's how democracy works. Obviously political opinions aren't ingrained and inherited, like species (a better example is maybe two meat eaters and a vegetarian trying to work out an order in a restaurant) - but ultimately if you want to win you need to (within the rules of your system) convince a majority.

And I'm not really sure what the alternative is - protected status for the scheduled class of *checks notes* landlords and owners of capital? This feels like the same argument against democracy that we've heard since the Greeks and it was wrong then and democracy was right and it's wrong now and democracy is right. Make the argument and win support to form part of a majority.

I really find that convincing and care about it.

I know one dude here who owns like six rental houses.  He has a day job working in a quarry.  I don't believe he has spent a penny to influence opinions.

I am aware that's how democracy works.  Athens was maybe the purest democracy history has seen.  Thucydides gave example after example of democracy delivering dumbass decisions.  In Republican states the democratic process has produced severe abortion restrictions.  I oppose those outcomes even they were arrived at democratically.

The alternative is for the general population to impose taxes on themselves to pay for nice shiny things they want.

I've been thinking about the Whiskey Rebellion since this topic came up.  A Continental Congress made up of Boston lawyers, New York bankers, and southern slave owners decide to tax west Pennsylvania hillbilly moonshiners.  Was that fair?  Was that morally defensible?  It was, as you mentioned, democratic.

[Admiral Yi]

I'm very happy with two wolves voting in favor of taxing everyone.

[HVC]

If the sheep horde all the wool eventually the wolves eat the sheep. That's the true benefit of democracy. Keeps the coercion state controlled and relatively peaceful.  The alternative is bloody, either from the top or the bottom.

[Valmy]

Well they taxed every distiller of spirits, not just the hillbilly ones.

[Admiral Yi]

If the sheep horde all the wool eventually the wolves eat the sheep. That's the true benefit of democracy. Keeps the coercion state controlled and relatively peaceful.  The alternative is bloody, either from the top or the bottom.

I dispute the use of the words horde (I think you mean hoard) and coercion as accurate descriptors of reality.

[HVC]

Indeed. Though I do like the image of menacing piles of wool

[Admiral Yi]

Stacking pyramids of renter skulls outside Babylon.  Guzzling fermented mare's milk before raping renters' wives and daughters.

[Sheilbh]

I really find that convincing and care about it.

I know one dude here who owns like six rental houses.  He has a day job working in a quarry.  I don't believe he has spent a penny to influence opinions.

Which would matter if he was the only landlord in America. But he's not. He benefits from the other landlords who do influence and shape opinion.

I am aware that's how democracy works.  Athens was maybe the purest democracy history has seen.  Thucydides gave example after example of democracy delivering dumbass decisions.  In Republican states the democratic process has produced severe abortion restrictions.  I oppose those outcomes even they were arrived at democratically.

I also think they're bad. My view is that the way you fix them is democratic politics. There is no form of politics that is immune to bad decisions and that shouldn't be the goal because it's setting all politics up to fail.

And Athens was a democracy of a type. Athenians were an autochthonous people tied to that land and its Gods but excluding all outsiders of all types. I don't think that type of engaged duty-bound democracy and society works at scale or in the modern world - I think part of the attraction of democracy is in many ways the opposite of Athens "pure" democracy. It is precisely that it provides a common framework for me and someone very dissimilar, at the other end of the country to both have a shared say - and I'm bound by them and them by me, but it doesn't require that active, involved, tied Athenian citizenship.

The alternative is for the general population to impose taxes on themselves to pay for nice shiny things they want.

They do: income tax, sales taxes, social security contribution, property taxes, fuel duty, additional vice taxes on tobacco, alcohol etc.

It applies general taxes and if you meet the conditions you pay them. I'd maybe get your issue if being a landlord was  caste or something inherited (though historic experience suggests that in those circumstances they tend to accrue power ). But it's a choice.

I've been thinking about the Whiskey Rebellion since this topic came up.  A Continental Congress made up of Boston lawyers, New York bankers, and southern slave owners decide to tax west Pennsylvania hillbilly moonshiners.  Was that fair?  Was that morally defensible?  It was, as you mentioned, democratic.

I think slave owners is the first clue of whether or not that was democratic decision making or not.

Putting that to one side, were the Pennsylvania hillbilly moonshiners able to vote and participate in the democratic process? And did they just lose? Because that's fine. All politics involves winners and losers and different interests competing - democracy is a way of doing it that gives everyone a chance. It is mechanistically fair, it doesn't mean it will deliver a fair or a "morally defensible" result (although I find even thinking about those treading into dangerously abstract, wooly territory). There will still be losers, as there always will - again I'm not convinced the owners of property and capital have generally been losers in Western democratic societies.

I have to be honest I'm surprised you're such a fan of equity v equality

[Admiral Yi]

They do: income tax, sales taxes, social security contribution, property taxes, fuel duty, additional vice taxes on tobacco, alcohol etc.

And I'm pointing out a case where they do not.

Putting that to one side, were the Pennsylvania hillbilly moonshiners able to vote and participate in the democratic process? And did they just lose? Because that's fine. All politics involves winners and losers and different interests competing - democracy is a way of doing it that gives everyone a chance. It is mechanistically fair, it doesn't mean it will deliver a fair or a "morally defensible" result (although I find even thinking about those treading into dangerously abstract, wooly territory). There will still be losers, as there always will - again I'm not convinced the owners of property and capital have generally been losers in Western democratic societies.

I have to be honest I'm surprised you're such a fan of equity v equality

And I'm critiquing a case where I believe the result is not fair or morally defensible.  What are we disputing?

I don't know what that last bit means.