Housing Crisis
Housing Crisis
Based on currently available numbers, there are about 31 vacant housing units for every homeless person in the U.S.
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If we had any sense, there would be crazy high taxes on unoccupied housing. There could be short term exceptions for things like remodeling and finding tenants. But it should be prohibitively expensive to sit on empty houses and apartments while people struggle to find affordable housing.
Take it a step further - decommodify all housing.
There is no valid reason why a handful of people should be allowed to own more than they could ever use, specifically so they can use the surplus to extort massive profits from others just trying to survive.
Housing is a human right, it's time we demand it be treated as such.
I like the idea and I've advocated for it in the past. There's one problem though- what about people who need to rent? Someone needs to own that property.
That is a manufactured problem.
How do you deal with it for now?
Social housing.
Government owned is the best we can do (and it has been done relatively successfully in the past) but just like all other housing, it has ended up being commodified for profit, because our governments are capitalist, and will always prioritise profit over anything else, which is why it'd only ever be a superficial solution.
In the long run?
Abolish capitalism and its artificial scarcity and commodification of all human rights (not only housing but food, water, healthcare..).
I'm an anarchist, in the future I want there is no money, so renting isn't a thing, people have their own homes, and I suppose there will be communal property that would act as housing for people who for whatever reason aren't there for the long term, and who would contribute whatever they were able to the maintenance and upkeep of the residence and/or community, but there really should be no need for anyone to "rent", because no one will "own", and permanent secure and stable housing wouldn't be out of anyone's reach.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
How do you make sure there are enough houses though.
Capitalism solves that problem, albeit imperfectly, by making housebuilding profitable when there is a supply shortage (home building has gone up as prices have shot up in the US.)
A command-style economy (government owned) solves that problem more directly by directing resources to build more homes.
I don't see how anarchism solves this problem at all. Say you have an anarchist society where there isn't enough housing, due to population growth or natural disaster or whatever. What mechanism is there to build houses for the homeless? Sure, they can try to build something their selves, but good luck making anything more complex than a lean-to without professional help. You can ask nicely for someone to build one for you I guess... that's really more communism than anarchism though, and it doesn't have a great track record of working on a scale larger than a few hundred people who all signed up to live in a community together.
Capitalism solves that problem, albeit imperfectly, by making housebuilding profitable when there is a supply shortage (home building has gone up as prices have shot up in the US.)
Lmmfao, how's that been working out for you? And how about everyone else around you?
I don’t see how anarchism solves this problem at all
Ah, well, if you, a single individual so deeply indoctrinated by capitalism that they look around and think it's offering them solutions (ignoring the fact that it also created the problem in the first place), and who clearly wilfully knows nothing about anarchism (or communism, for that matter), says it can't solve this problem, they must be right.. 🙄🙄😂
All right boss, explain to me how anarchism ensures housing for all. I'm all ears.
You could have answered them instead of just being degrading. Not really selling the ideal in the followup. So I guess I'll try: Its anarchy, so there is no government. Some communal apparatus would probably appear that works on the construction of houses. What's the incentive? Well we're already living in a community where giving back to it operates in the place of money. So they'd just build houses, cause thats what they do.
The amish solved this hundreds of years ago without capitalism or communism
Yes- a small community of like minded people. But they still rely on state services and law enforcement.
"state services" are just people's actions, communities of people can cooperate without rulers.
This is a common misunderstanding of anarchism. Anarchism doesn't mean individualism, often it means the opposite. Anarchists can cooperate and freely associate into large organisations of people and can participate in planned economies or even market economies (less commonly).
Edit: I don't expect you to read all of this, but I'd have similar expectations about anything I can say on the subject, and this saves me time.
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-anarchy-works
All right, I made it through about 20% of that document before I decided to call it quits. I appreciated the examples of different anarchic/stateless societies but I got frustrated with the use of obviously untrue statements to support the thesis.
In the introduction the doc states that statist societies are incapable of dealing with problems like climate change. This seems completely backwards to me. Climate change is a tragedy of the commons type challenge and that requires some sort of authority to deal with. Do you really think a world of anarchist societies could pull off the Montreal Protocol?
Here's another claim that's clearly untrue:
"Today’s entrenched systems of repression cannot be reformed away. Those who hold power in a hierarchical system are the ones who institute reforms, and they generally do so in ways that preserve or even amplify their power. Systems like capitalism and white supremacy are forms of warfare waged by elites; anarchist revolution means fighting to overthrow these elites in order to create a free society."
- institutional racism has been "reformed away" in pretty much every developed nation on the planet. That is not to say that racism is gone but enormous progress has already been made. Not a decade goes by without enormous progress towards equality. A century ago women couldn't vote; 2 decades ago gay people couldn't marry. It seems strange to look at this societal progress and throw up your hands and say this system is incapable of achieving equality.
Another claim is "everyone also has a sense of the needs of those around them, and we are all capable of generous and selfless actions." I'm a big believer that humans are fundamentally good, but there are absolutely exceptions. Quite apart from societal influences, some people are neurodivergent a threat to people around them. Its the few that ruin it for the many.
When talking about indigenous societies run by cheif, the document claims "Ultimately they [cheifs] worked harder and had less personal wealth than others" with no citation. I have never myself read any examples of this. Every portrayal of cheifs I have ever seen shows them as having the nicest clothes, the nicest lodging, and usually the first pick of one or more wives. And before you dismiss that as western propaganda- western propaganda generally kinda like the strength and dignity cheifs. I don't see why they would make up facts about chieftains that make them look better- surely they would instead push the opposite narrative that indigenous cheifs were poor and overworked?
Then I got to the discussion of KPAM which was the last straw for me. The doc describes it as a place where "large populations had freed themselves from the authority of landlords and governors and reasserted their power to come to collective decisions, to organize their day-to-day life, pursue their dreams, and defend those dreams from invading armies."
I was curious about such a large example of anarchy so I did some more research. Wikipedia says "Before long, the association found itself under attack by both Korean communists and Japanese imperialists, who assassinated their leadership" hmmmm that doesn't sound like it anarchy...
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/l3czli/did_an_anarchist_commune_really_exist_in_the/
Seems KPAM was basically just the domain of a general/warlord Kim Chwa-chin.
I was interested to learn more about different examples but the document burned through its credibility with me and I couldn't take any of its claims at face value.
I must say I'm impressed at your level of engagement and I admire how much thought you've put into this, I truly did not expect it, and although I don't agree with all of your criticisms completely I do agree that it's a biased presentation and I don't take all of its information at face value either.
I've dug into some of its claims as I read it, and some things were truer than I expected and others were interpretations of the truth, but I never found anything that made me feel the author was being dishonest with the reader on purpose. Though some things lack adequate justification or are matters of opinion stated more assertively than they should be, I don't think the author is trying to lie to me anymore than you could say they are lying to themselves.
I consider it a very interesting and eye opening resource with many reality-rooted ideas of how things could work and how they have worked, but to your point it's not convincing enough that this is the right way or the only way. However, my goal in sharing it wasn't to convince you of all of that but instead to try to give you a better idea of how anarchism might work at scale and dispel the notion that an anarchist society would not be capable of providing basic needs for its people, I hope you can see how that could be possible even if you reject some of the more modern and larger scale examples as "not really anarchism." There are other contemporary "not really anarchism" areas like the region of the Zapatistas and Rojava in Syrian Kurdistan that are of interest to me as well.
I disagree with some of your criticisms, for instance although I can recognize that civil rights have been progressing over the decades under Liberalism I can point to very many examples of backsliding and ongoing systemic issues that are just as harmful to marginalized people of today as they were when the mask was off. Through a certain lens you might think that we have more black slaves today under the legalized slavery of the prison labor system in the United States than we did under the slave trade, but granted that's "more equal" in that it's not limited to black people and it's also a function of population growth.
Any concessions towards equality from the ruling class have these kinds of asterisks and those rights vanish as quickly as they appear under a system of rule. I agree with the author that the only truly equal society that's possible would be one that actively resists any form of oppression (including economic oppression) and violence-backed authority and by definition that begins to take the shape of socialism, communism, and anarchism. Just as you point to KPAM and say its characteristics were a result of benevolent (debatable perhaps) rule by a warlord, I feel the same about any egalitarian progress today under Liberal capitalism, and that power apparatus is a short distance away from becoming fascist and undoing all of that progress. That used to feel like hyperbole, but feels all too real now.
Thank you for the engaging conversation. I don't think we disagree as much as I thought we might, nor do we completely agree, but I'm glad we had an open minded conversation. I'm not a devout and completely convinced anarchist but I'm definitely an anti-capitalist and anarchism feels like a good target to push towards from our current state, maybe along the way we'll find a better stopping point or a point of diminishing returns, but that's the direction I would like to see us taking from here.
Owner has to live on the property. If you want to rent out the basement or build a suite no problem, you are adding to the number of places available to live.
The person who lives in it should own it. Just give it to them for free.
why would anyone want to work horrible jobs with horrible working conditions if their needs are met? that would mean employers would need to treat their employees with respect and all working arrangements would need to be mutually beneficial instead of one side consenting under duress.
No one is stopping Grandma Susan from renting out her basement to pay bills. This is about commercial landlords.
No one is stopping Grandma Susan from renting out her basement to pay bills.
I regret to report that plenty of people are stopping Grandma Susan from doing just that. Many municipalities in the U.S. forbid unrelated people from living in the same household to prevent roommate arrangements, and they also outlaw accessory dwelling units like basement apartments. American zoning laws are a nightmare.
Many municipalities in the U.S. forbid unrelated people from living in the same household to prevent roommate arrangements
citation requested.
My own city only recently lifted a regulation like that:
The specifics will change depending on the locality, of course, but these regulations are fairly common.
from the article you posted:
In more than a third of the city, the existing zoning restrictions prohibited any more than two unrelated tenants from living together in homes not occupied by the owner.
so two unrelated people can live together fine. And this only applies to that third of the city, the remaining 2/3rds do not have this restriction.
I know it's less than the ideal, which would be them minding their own fucking business, but the statement I replied to is inaccurate - in your case, grandma could rent out her basement, she just can't rent out the guest room, basement and MIL shack out back, IF she's in that one third of Madison covered by that reg.
IF__*
Like I said, there's plenty of variations on this theme across different cities. No matter if the original comment was correct in every detail or not, the general principle was correct.
so you assert, but I'm not actually finding a lot to support the thesis.
a few cities, or parts of cities, have some form of restriction, but it appears that most do not and even the cities that do, do not have a universal ban themselves.
I suspect Madison has this restriction on residences primarily nearby the Uni to prevent kids from crowding in over-occupancy to be honest.
Please explain to me why somebody needs to own the property. Bear in mind that a lot of property in the country and the world is not owned by somebody.
I have a family member that has empty houses. It's immoral, and severely fucked up. He doesn't give a shit and thinks he's earned the right. He treats them like stocks so far as I can tell.