Because the government exist only to protect the interests of the ruling class. In capitalism it’s the bourgeoisie. Especially in the highest stage of capitalism, imperialism.
It would be against their class interest, same reason why homless people exist, why exploitstion exist, and so on and so forth.
It’s simplistic to arbitrarily brand an entire ‘social liberal’ government of being of the same [bourgeois?] class, to the point where it’s often untrue even if the result is the same. Many of the politicians don’t really benefit from homeless people existing.
I’d say a more accurate statement is that due to the interrelation of economics and political governance, they’re beholden to the capitalist class, and therefore are pressured to accommodate. An important distinction is that this doesn’t suggest a ‘well what if we had politicians from our class instead?’ line of thinking.
Marx basically agrees:
The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas.
The political elite in bourgeois society are carrying out a program in accord with the economic interests of the bourgeoisie, even if the rulers themselves are not technically of that class, though many of them are.
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Fooling people in the fool’s circus that is the liberal “democracy” of course. For example, in Poland, PiS won the elections in 2015 precisely by promising affordable housing, but nothing of it materialised (as expected by anyone with any real knowledge about the capitalism), yet the system is so crooked they were able to maintain the momentum by offering other scraps along the way. of course it would not been able to success if not for the neoliberal opposition which is unwilling to offer even those meager scraps. In other words, after getting rid of socialists the system is in perpetual limbo between fascists and neoliberals, as is in basically every western country in this or that form.
[I am not Canadian, but have lived for long times in countries with similar governance]
If we ignore moral/ethical arguments (which certainly can matter! but they shouldn’t be relied on, especially in political contexts), why would the government benefit from doing that?
I can only think of reputational reasons, which would be more easily or effectively achieved by doing other things. It’s one of those things which it would be nice to do, but I don’t think they will. The power plant companies have more influence than those that want affordable housing.
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What do you mean? Seize it and then sell it again, then use the funds for affordable housing?
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