I mean, you can go one further and establish public utilities that ration resources per capita instead of charging a vig on top of the production cost.
Why do I need UBI and wages if I can just claim a vacant apartment and be guaranteed power/telecom, of which their are millions nationally?
We could divert the tens of billions (converted to energy/man hours) we’re throwing away on AI subsidies and everyone can live a comfortable middle class life free of charge.
Why do I need UBI and wages if I can just claim a vacant apartment and be guaranteed power/telecom, of which their are millions nationally?
Because almost all of those homes are vacant for a reason. They are in disrepair, or under renovations, or actively looking for someone to occupy them, etc. Of course, there are some places in rural Kansas which are just vacant - but then, these are already dirt cheap. Iirc, there are some towns which will give you the house for free if you live there for X number of years.
So let’s say anyone can request a residence for free from the government if they would like. What happens? Well, first of all, all vacant housing stock immediately disappears in almost all places because - all things being equal - most people would prefer to live alone, rather than living with their family (when they are an adult) or with roommates. And the government can’t force people to live with someone they don’t like - that’s a political non-starter - so if someone ends up residing in a 5 bedroom house, they can just keep rejecting potential roommates the government sends their way. If your goal was to end homelessness, this market trend will immediately stymie your goal - you will still need to build more housing, which will take more time, and people will still be homeless.
Meanwhile, it becomes agonizingly difficult to move anywhere. Want to move to a new city? Well, you’ll be on a years-long waiting list to find a place to live. If it is a city that a lot of people want to live in, then the waiting list will just perpetually keep getting longer. Want to move out of your parents house? You’ll need to find a friend who already has a place, or get on a years-long waiting list.
What if you have special needs, like you are wheelchair bound? Now you need to wait even longer for a place which is wheelchair accessible. Sure, the government might prioritize such cases - but what about cases that don’t neatly fit in a box? Suppose you have a best friend who needs help looking after their child. You want to help out, but you live on the other side of the city, an hour away. So you can never help your friend as much as you want because of the commute, and their child will be grown by the time you could get a place closer to them.
Markets are good because they force people to make choices that balance their desires against everyone elses, which creates a highly efficient mechanism for rationing scarce resources like housing. So people can live alone if they want, or find roommates to save money if they want. They can spend more to live in a hip neighborhood if they want, or spend less to live in a cheaper neighborhood. They can decide how much they value not walking up stairs every day, and choose to pay more for an apartment with an elevator or on the ground floor.
You give the yokels far too little credit. Quite a few of them are convinced it is the liberals who want to means test away their quality of life and expose them to the predation of foreign markets.
And they’re often right. DLC liberals were perfectly fine with Midwestern deindustrialized, education privatization, military expansion, and corrosive financialization. The problem is that they’re boxed in, with nowhere to go. Conservatives ensconced them in a media monopoly, screaming a partial truth - that liberal business interests have fully compromised their wing of government. That’s made selling “we’re all you’ve got” an incredibly powerful message on the right. Even as the Congressional paymasters tip both parties generously.
I mean, you can go one further and establish public utilities that ration resources per capita instead of charging a vig on top of the production cost.
Why do I need UBI and wages if I can just claim a vacant apartment and be guaranteed power/telecom, of which their are millions nationally?
We could divert the tens of billions (converted to energy/man hours) we’re throwing away on AI subsidies and everyone can live a comfortable middle class life free of charge.
AI subsidies?
Because almost all of those homes are vacant for a reason. They are in disrepair, or under renovations, or actively looking for someone to occupy them, etc. Of course, there are some places in rural Kansas which are just vacant - but then, these are already dirt cheap. Iirc, there are some towns which will give you the house for free if you live there for X number of years.
So let’s say anyone can request a residence for free from the government if they would like. What happens? Well, first of all, all vacant housing stock immediately disappears in almost all places because - all things being equal - most people would prefer to live alone, rather than living with their family (when they are an adult) or with roommates. And the government can’t force people to live with someone they don’t like - that’s a political non-starter - so if someone ends up residing in a 5 bedroom house, they can just keep rejecting potential roommates the government sends their way. If your goal was to end homelessness, this market trend will immediately stymie your goal - you will still need to build more housing, which will take more time, and people will still be homeless.
Meanwhile, it becomes agonizingly difficult to move anywhere. Want to move to a new city? Well, you’ll be on a years-long waiting list to find a place to live. If it is a city that a lot of people want to live in, then the waiting list will just perpetually keep getting longer. Want to move out of your parents house? You’ll need to find a friend who already has a place, or get on a years-long waiting list.
What if you have special needs, like you are wheelchair bound? Now you need to wait even longer for a place which is wheelchair accessible. Sure, the government might prioritize such cases - but what about cases that don’t neatly fit in a box? Suppose you have a best friend who needs help looking after their child. You want to help out, but you live on the other side of the city, an hour away. So you can never help your friend as much as you want because of the commute, and their child will be grown by the time you could get a place closer to them.
Markets are good because they force people to make choices that balance their desires against everyone elses, which creates a highly efficient mechanism for rationing scarce resources like housing. So people can live alone if they want, or find roommates to save money if they want. They can spend more to live in a hip neighborhood if they want, or spend less to live in a cheaper neighborhood. They can decide how much they value not walking up stairs every day, and choose to pay more for an apartment with an elevator or on the ground floor.
Really, you pull a “what about wheelchairs” then turn around and talk about how people should pay more if they value not taking the stairs?
Exactly. Markets solve all sorts of problems, big and small.
Yes but yokels in the flyover states will say no, so you’re not allowed to do this.
You give the yokels far too little credit. Quite a few of them are convinced it is the liberals who want to means test away their quality of life and expose them to the predation of foreign markets.
And they’re often right. DLC liberals were perfectly fine with Midwestern deindustrialized, education privatization, military expansion, and corrosive financialization. The problem is that they’re boxed in, with nowhere to go. Conservatives ensconced them in a media monopoly, screaming a partial truth - that liberal business interests have fully compromised their wing of government. That’s made selling “we’re all you’ve got” an incredibly powerful message on the right. Even as the Congressional paymasters tip both parties generously.