Any charge for housing is unethical because housing is a human right. Anyone, low cost or not, that gets money for “providing” housing in the way a landlord does is just socially acceptable scalping.
And just building government sponsored free housing for everyone is great and all until you think about the fact that different people have different requirements and if you remove the landlord scalping from the picture it doesn’t actually save any money since it’d just be paid for by taxes.
The landlord doesn’t build the houses, why should the landlord be an upcharging middleman? It’s because of landlords that housing prices are so high so I see no reason to have any sympathy for those societal leeches.
If the landlord is the local municipality then they did most likely pay for the house to be built. And in general the landlord has bought it from whoever built it if they didn’t do it themselves, so they still paid for it.
Abusing the power imbalance to raise prices is unethical. The fact that people make money from having money is a general capitalism issue that is far from exclusive to housing. But the houses don’t spawn out of thin air and the costs for that have to be paid one way or another.
okay, so my city started a project to build a few flats and then plans to offer them at a cheap rate, for people with lesser incomes, young couples etc, so it’s kinda social housing, is that still scalping?
Should someone be allowed to build their own house?
If so, should someone be allowed to sell that house to someone else?
If so, should someone be allowed to charge the price they desire for the asset they own?
Let’s say these publicly provided houses are no longer needed (people move out, because a local industry shuts down). Should the builder (the council or whatever the regional public institutions are called) be allowed to sell these houses off?
I mean, you can answer no to those questions and remain consistent to your ideology. But then be honest about what you want the state to be and behave towards its citizens.
Or you can answer yes to at least one of them and realise that it’s pretty hard not to create speculation in housing, without doing something unethical to people.
Any charge for housing is unethical because housing is a human right. Anyone, low cost or not, that gets money for “providing” housing in the way a landlord does is just socially acceptable scalping.
I guess houses build themselves for free now
And just building government sponsored free housing for everyone is great and all until you think about the fact that different people have different requirements and if you remove the landlord scalping from the picture it doesn’t actually save any money since it’d just be paid for by taxes.
The landlord doesn’t build the houses, why should the landlord be an upcharging middleman? It’s because of landlords that housing prices are so high so I see no reason to have any sympathy for those societal leeches.
If the landlord is the local municipality then they did most likely pay for the house to be built. And in general the landlord has bought it from whoever built it if they didn’t do it themselves, so they still paid for it.
Abusing the power imbalance to raise prices is unethical. The fact that people make money from having money is a general capitalism issue that is far from exclusive to housing. But the houses don’t spawn out of thin air and the costs for that have to be paid one way or another.
okay, so my city started a project to build a few flats and then plans to offer them at a cheap rate, for people with lesser incomes, young couples etc, so it’s kinda social housing, is that still scalping?
Yes
Should someone be allowed to build their own house?
If so, should someone be allowed to sell that house to someone else?
If so, should someone be allowed to charge the price they desire for the asset they own?
Let’s say these publicly provided houses are no longer needed (people move out, because a local industry shuts down). Should the builder (the council or whatever the regional public institutions are called) be allowed to sell these houses off?
I mean, you can answer no to those questions and remain consistent to your ideology. But then be honest about what you want the state to be and behave towards its citizens.
Or you can answer yes to at least one of them and realise that it’s pretty hard not to create speculation in housing, without doing something unethical to people.
Capitalism shouldn’t exist so your point is moot
Ok, but just humour me.
Should someone be allowed to build their own house?
If they have a house, are they allowed to give it to someone else in exchange for something?
Could that something they exchange it for be a rare asset, which takes a long time to produce and stores easily?
Should someone be allowed to store that asset on your behalf and issue a piece of paper that promises to repay the bearer?
Congrats, you’ve invented money, banking, investments, fractional reserves etc etc
And it starts with a simple question: Do you recognise ownership? Everything follows from that.
… and if you don’t recognise ownership in this future world of yours, I expect you’ll have a hard time convincing people it’ll be very enticing.
Okay
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
You invented bartering, not money
I respect personal property, as soon as property is used for profit it’s private property and I don’t respect private property