I lived in a country which had a similar, government built, co-operatively operated housing. With no profit to be made, therefore no incentive, government being the "builder", the waiting list for an apartment reached 40 years by the time we escaped. People would sign their newborns up hoping by the time their children are 40 years old they would their own apartment to rent-to-own, unless of course you had the right connections, then you could bribe the appropriate people and get one earlier.
I don't know if you really believe what you're saying or are just a troll, but calling absolutely every idea that tries to curtail economic rent (which is bad for free market) communism doesn't help anyone.
Free markets are defined by the rules that govern them, not their absence. That requires a government that is... yes... *in control* of business and private wealth, and setting boundaries.
Arguing that this can be done corruptly or badly isn't a blanket argument against all efforts to address the probl
"calling absolutely every idea that tries...." perhaps you were replying to someone else, since I commented only on the idea in the original post, which proposed government funded co-op housing in which everyone owns shares, enabling people to move from place to place while retaining their shares of the (I presume) country wide non-profit co-op (if not country wide, how are you going to move from L.A. to N.Y.C. and retain your ownership). While my personal experience was with a government funded coop where people paid towards a specific dwelling (no mobility, no nation wide co-op, co-ops were managing collocated groups of multi-dwelling buildings), the mobility idea makes it even more like communism - "the people" own all the housing in the nationwide co-op. I also am not arguing that something is a bad idea because it could be corrupt, but simply that every implementation of communism has failed, including public housing in a communist country from which I escaped, no matter how many people scream how they know how to do communism better, perhaps under a different name.
This about it, the proposed idea here is basically that everyone buys "shares" of this US wide co-op, with money included in their rent. Lots of people want to live in places like Silicon Valley or New York - how are you going to decided which co-op shareholders get to live there? Waiting lists (how many years long?) for rent controlled apartments or market value rent (what we have today, except your rent now includes an additional cost of mandatory stock buy of the co-op)?
This entire argument seem to be for "the people" to take over the business of renting, so all profits go back to "the people". That is the same argument communism used to take over all businesses, every business is government owned, government sets all prices (instead of the market) and everyone has money but there is nothing to buy in stores, even toilet paper requires bribes to get - note that the corruption there is an effect, not the cause of inadequate supply. The cause of inadequate supply is that there is no profit to be made, so nobody cares to optimize, streamline, or even work harder since they will get paid the same no matter how much they work.
Communism (Score:-1, Troll)
I lived in a country which had a similar, government built, co-operatively operated housing. With no profit to be made, therefore no incentive, government being the "builder", the waiting list for an apartment reached 40 years by the time we escaped. People would sign their newborns up hoping by the time their children are 40 years old they would their own apartment to rent-to-own, unless of course you had the right connections, then you could bribe the appropriate people and get one earlier.
So, perhaps tho
Re: (Score:5, Insightful)
Free markets are defined by the rules that govern them, not their absence. That requires a government that is... yes... *in control* of business and private wealth, and setting boundaries.
Arguing that this can be done corruptly or badly isn't a blanket argument against all efforts to address the probl
Re:Communism (Score:3)
"calling absolutely every idea that tries...." perhaps you were replying to someone else, since I commented only on the idea in the original post, which proposed government funded co-op housing in which everyone owns shares, enabling people to move from place to place while retaining their shares of the (I presume) country wide non-profit co-op (if not country wide, how are you going to move from L.A. to N.Y.C. and retain your ownership). While my personal experience was with a government funded coop where people paid towards a specific dwelling (no mobility, no nation wide co-op, co-ops were managing collocated groups of multi-dwelling buildings), the mobility idea makes it even more like communism - "the people" own all the housing in the nationwide co-op. I also am not arguing that something is a bad idea because it could be corrupt, but simply that every implementation of communism has failed, including public housing in a communist country from which I escaped, no matter how many people scream how they know how to do communism better, perhaps under a different name.
This about it, the proposed idea here is basically that everyone buys "shares" of this US wide co-op, with money included in their rent. Lots of people want to live in places like Silicon Valley or New York - how are you going to decided which co-op shareholders get to live there? Waiting lists (how many years long?) for rent controlled apartments or market value rent (what we have today, except your rent now includes an additional cost of mandatory stock buy of the co-op)?
This entire argument seem to be for "the people" to take over the business of renting, so all profits go back to "the people". That is the same argument communism used to take over all businesses, every business is government owned, government sets all prices (instead of the market) and everyone has money but there is nothing to buy in stores, even toilet paper requires bribes to get - note that the corruption there is an effect, not the cause of inadequate supply. The cause of inadequate supply is that there is no profit to be made, so nobody cares to optimize, streamline, or even work harder since they will get paid the same no matter how much they work.