Oh don’t get me wrong; I agree that a lot of the disparity we see in Canada today is calculated and intentional. That said, I would still argue this approach is short sighted. The general population will only tolerate being pushed down by the policy makers and wealthy elite for so long. Push too far, and you’re just asking for the sort of social unrest that we’re seeing in countries like France at the moment. As @sup said elsewhere, these conditions inevitably lead to “crime, polarized views, fascism, extremism, aggressiveness, and so on”. It isn’t sustainable forever.
The housing crisis we are experiencing is part of how the ruling class manipulate us in the first place. The looming threat of homelessness if we are not constantly productive (as in generating value for capitalists) keeps us working shitty jobs for unfair wages.
The Boomers are still a powerful voting block and they are bought off with their “real estate investments” or what the rest of us would just consider a place to sleep where you don’t freeze to death and people don’t steal your clothes. They all get to LARP as wealthy capitalists and fuck everyone else. Anything that solves the housing crisis is necessarily going to absolutely tank the value of their homes, so until they all die off that can never actually happen because their vastly overvalued homes are their retirement investments. Fix housing for us, and we get a whole wave of homeless Boomers who can’t afford to support themselves.
Which would look SO good on them, but it’s just not going to happen unless we pull a France. And even then we just go back to the status quo of homelessness still being a threat used against us, but only affecting about 1/3 as many as it is right now.
Oh don’t get me wrong; I agree that a lot of the disparity we see in Canada today is calculated and intentional. That said, I would still argue this approach is short sighted. The general population will only tolerate being pushed down by the policy makers and wealthy elite for so long. Push too far, and you’re just asking for the sort of social unrest that we’re seeing in countries like France at the moment. As @sup said elsewhere, these conditions inevitably lead to “crime, polarized views, fascism, extremism, aggressiveness, and so on”. It isn’t sustainable forever.
The housing crisis we are experiencing is part of how the ruling class manipulate us in the first place. The looming threat of homelessness if we are not constantly productive (as in generating value for capitalists) keeps us working shitty jobs for unfair wages.
The Boomers are still a powerful voting block and they are bought off with their “real estate investments” or what the rest of us would just consider a place to sleep where you don’t freeze to death and people don’t steal your clothes. They all get to LARP as wealthy capitalists and fuck everyone else. Anything that solves the housing crisis is necessarily going to absolutely tank the value of their homes, so until they all die off that can never actually happen because their vastly overvalued homes are their retirement investments. Fix housing for us, and we get a whole wave of homeless Boomers who can’t afford to support themselves.
Which would look SO good on them, but it’s just not going to happen unless we pull a France. And even then we just go back to the status quo of homelessness still being a threat used against us, but only affecting about 1/3 as many as it is right now.
https://truthout.org/articles/we-could-end-homelessness-right-now-if-only-capitalism-didnt-get-in-the-way/
https://truthout.org/articles/homelessness-one-of-capitalism-s-many-inevitable-products/