The politics of housing

[David]

Take a look at the numbers. There are far more poor people in the world then there are well-off (like us). As you point out, substantial inequality still exists within democratic systems, but at a certain degree it becomes untenable, depending on how truly representative and regulated the system in question is.

Whatever the practicalities of these hypothetical, you'd have to agree that the world's extreme levels of standard of living disparity is an injustice. How can people live in mansions spending money on vintage cars while other people starve to death because of famine? Surely no sane person could think that's OK. How to practically resolve that is a trickier question, but I would guess that it would have to involve us sacrificing something.

[stui magpie]

Don't hurt yourself climbing down from your soapbox when your finished. It's always the same solution with you types, take from the "wealthy" and give it to the poor until everyone is equally poor.

Isn't the better way investment in infrastructure,education and training to help develop a sustainable economy that will deliver a better standard of living? Pretty much what the billions spent on foreign aid is trying to do?

[David]

^ I'm pointing out problems, not offering solutions. I agree with your second paragraph, but it's not the only answer unfortunately.

[stui magpie]

Actually you have been offering solutions such as redistributing wealth and having single world governments.

[David]

^ If you read carefully, you'd realise I was never at any stage actually proposing a single world government. I said that the existence of borders is one major factor that allows such global wealth disparities to persist, which I still think is more or less true.

[stui magpie]

I think you're lousy at problem definition which has an adverse impact on your next steps.

Separate governments can't be the problem or the wealth disparities wouldn't exist within individual countries under the same government.

Separate economies would be closer to the mark. It has some of the same same restrictions but not all, as the global economy and free trade increases the opportunities increase for the poverty stricken areas to create wealth.

The wealthy aren't the problem either, that's the aspirational state as is a comfortable populace with disposable income. The problem is the ones who have %$^�$%^&%% all, so look at ways to lift them up without automatically jumping to dragging everyone else down.

[David]

In some ways you're right and in some ways you're wrong. I agree that we shouldn't treat resources as a zero sum game and that wealth can be created through more effective production. On the other hand, there can never be 7 billion Donald Trumps. There's just not that much living space and certainly nowhere near that many resources in any foreseeable future. So, no matter how much you take a positive, wealth-creation approach, creating a substantially less unequal world would require at least some people to take a hit.

If you accept that, then you accept my basic premise. The question is just where you draw the line. What's scary is that we may never have the resources to support 7 billion comfortable middle-class Westerners, either. Our continuing wealth may in a sense always be dependent on others not having enough. That may not bother you, but it should.

[stui magpie]

But why can't there still be some Donald Trumps? What's wrong with having some people with lots of money as long as the rest have enough?

There's always going to be wealth disparity in a capitalist society, different people have different skills and personalities, some skills attract a higher remuneration than others, some people are willing to work harder and take more risks than others, there's nothing wrong with that.

The only reason why some people would need to take a hit is because you're ideologically opposed to the concept of some people being overly wealthy.

Bill Gates has a shitpile of money, his foundation spends $3 billion per year eradicating diseases such as malaria in 3rd world countries.

[Mugwump]

[Morrigu]

[pietillidie]

If I can agree with both of you, Stui and David, the wrestle is always over degrees and strategy.

It is an injustice; there's no doubt about it. An extremely disturbing one if you genuinely allow your mind to consider the mass of misfortune, from birthplace to health.

David, because that's an extremely burdensome thought, most people see it, package it up, and tuck it away. Another problem is the damned "elasticity" of happiness. This is a genetic strength, because it enables us to still experience happiness in crap conditions. But it's a double-edged sword: It also enables people to feel crap in apparently good conditions.

Also, cultural norm sets us a baseline "cost of participation". So, someone from Broady running three jobs and supporting two teenagers might be relatively much wealthier than an unlucky peasant somewhere, but they have no disposable income left at the end of the week.

Then, there's plain old lack of self-awareness. So, a percentage of people with millions have disposable income or liquefiable assets, but lack the self-awareness to realise their social context keeps changing and they never feel "comfortable" or whatever. That happens to everyone at every scale.

Others take their self-help CDs too seriously and brainwash themselves into thinking they "deserve" more (including their cadre of Libertarian coat-tail-holders), another very natural human nonsense we all partake in. Still others are in the classic "born-to-rule" class everyone loathes.

The problem here is, some are brainwashed into that nonsense from birth and are made ignorant, while others literally did have to brainwash themselves daily into succeeding again whatever odds they faced.

So, you get these natural complexities that can't easily be remedied due to the foibles of human psychology.

But, and this is where I take exception, accepting that does not have to mean:

(a) Accepting political capture;

(b) Falling for a naive, unscientific individualism�Homo sapiens is plainly a social species, and thus the health of the whole is always a cost variable;

(c) Swapping the apparent technical lack of free will in science and philosophy, which is psychologically burdensome and conflicts with our need for human agency, for an Old Darwinian fatalism. By agreement we allow a notion of free will because there's no alternative. However, holding that the superior rule by force and there's no point or its even counterproductive trying to rein them in is forgoing free will by other means. You don't get to denounce the former and hold onto the latter without being called a religious dingbat or a Machievellian. (This has to be a core plank of the new social contract in the age of cognitive science).

That probably covers my disagreement. Point (b) covers pretty much everything in this thread. Point (c) lies behind the current mismatch between productivity and real wages: The wealthy are superior ipso facto, so there's nothing we can do to collect the revenues we need to maintain an HQ society as they will outwit us every time, so instead let's cut mental health services to children, work longer hours, raise the VAT, let people's teeth rot, make folks travel two hours to work, and so on.

At the same time, I have no problem asking the average Joe to put in as long as they've got a path to reward and opportunity, which is plainly not the case under stagnant or declining real wages. It takes insight and ingenuity to put together a trade like that with the populace. H-K did it, so hopefully Turnbull is thinking along those lines.

Basically, the only serious platform is one that finds a way to lift wages back in line with productivity. If you constrain services, it has to be done as part of an overall deal which also constrains upper-decile wealth and avoidance, and diverts a substantial portion of the revenue gained from each into targeted job-creating, income-generating infrastructure. Whatever the specifics, those are the immutable parameters of sanity.

[David]

Hallelujah.

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/feb/13/labor-promises-to-cut-negative-gearing-and-capital-gains-tax-concessions?CMP=soc_567

I know, it didn't take them half long enough. But PTID, I hope you're reconsidering voting for Turnbull now.

[stui magpie]

That's nice of Bill, Big Mal had already said they were looking at something too.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/treasury/negative-gearing-next-tax-target-for-turnbull-government/news-story/d54e19669334d88f89254511f8c10397

[think positive]

[David]