Hmmmm, do I really want to put myself through the painful experience of reading HN comments about "the problem of poverty"?
Pass.
What if the problem of poverty is that it’s profitable to other people?
221–230 of 462 posts
Re: What if the problem of poverty is that it’s profitable to other people?
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it so hard to grasp that local optimization does not necessarily lead to globally favorable conditions?
So anything that's part of a system that isn't perfectly ideal is unethical now? There are certain constraints that any large-scale system made of people has to work under, for example the sort of things that make communism not work very well at scales larger than a small commune. Any localized parts of such a system, need to mesh properly with the larger system. Much that is demonized as "exploitative" (not all, but…
> So anything that's part of a system that isn't perfectly ideal is unethical now?
I suspect that the commenter means that any sociopolitical system other than his or her preferred one is unethical, which is what anyone who makes moral arguments for sociopolitical systems (i.e. nearly everyone I have ever met) is implicitly claiming.
Re: What if the problem of poverty is that it’s profitable to other people?
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't Communism very similar to your perfect world? All the people were provided for and they worked for everyone and everyone was equal. However, that didn't work out too well. In any system, some folk will always squatter and some will always attempt to gain power/advantage. Your world sounds too much like Atlas Shrugged.
>However, that didn't work out too well. When was communism actually implemented, that it didn't "work out too well" in your opinion?
sigh do we really need to have this discussion and dou you actually think communism would ever work?
The problem is that pesky human nature gets in the way.
Re: What if the problem of poverty is that it’s profitable to other people?
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe it worked for Israel, because it was run by politicians who cared about their people and not by those who cared for the interests of mainly the mega-corporations (e.g. USA) or the interests of mainly the party-workers (e.g. USSR). Such schemes from government are a must. They are much better than "welfare" which just encourages people to be lazy. Edit: added about "welfare".
It worked pretty well in the USSR - housing was generally not a problem. Heck even after the collapse of the USSR economy, people still had a place to live. Can you imagine how hellish it would be if it happened in the US , when everything is private and most don't own?
What are you even talking about? Apartments in USSR were infamously hard to get, and even now, significant part of tge population lives in dorms, communal apartments or in buildings too dangerous to live in. Plus, USSR has a long tradition of several generations of the same family living in the same apartment together, a room per family.
Re: What if the problem of poverty is that it’s profitable to other people?
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
For some reason I'm reminded of the old joke: a Keynesian and a rat-ex theorist are walking down the street. "Look," says the Keynesian, "A twenty dollar bill!" "Can't be," says the other economist. "If it were there, someone would have picked it up already." Here's the thing: being a slumlord is profitable. Yes, your tenants don't pay much, but if you don't improve your property, ignore complaints, refuse basic main…
You made a huge leap from "running a trailer park" to "being a slumlord", and you also implied but haven't answered the question of who is to pay for mold remediation etc when the tenants can't afford to make it profitable. Surely landlords can't be compelled into their own poverty , forced to rent units below cost. Such a price has to be paid by society/government overall, or not at all.
Forced to rent below cost, no, but if they can't make a profit out running a business that works within the law they shouldn't be engaging in the business.
Re: What if the problem of poverty is that it’s profitable to other people?
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
For some reason I'm reminded of the old joke: a Keynesian and a rat-ex theorist are walking down the street. "Look," says the Keynesian, "A twenty dollar bill!" "Can't be," says the other economist. "If it were there, someone would have picked it up already." Here's the thing: being a slumlord is profitable. Yes, your tenants don't pay much, but if you don't improve your property, ignore complaints, refuse basic main…
You made a huge leap from "running a trailer park" to "being a slumlord", and you also implied but haven't answered the question of who is to pay for mold remediation etc when the tenants can't afford to make it profitable. Surely landlords can't be compelled into their own poverty , forced to rent units below cost. Such a price has to be paid by society/government overall, or not at all.
No one is forcing these property owners to "rent units below cost;" they set the rents on their houses and apartments. The issue is that many of these people buy properties that are out of code with no intent to improve them, and then rent them anyway. Yes, it's not economically-rational to rebuild them. No, it's not the government's fault that the slumlord's business model depends on flouting code and safety violations.
The simple answer is that if I can't afford to maintain a minimal level of environmental and residential standards, I'm not allowed to rent out my property. Likewise, I can't buy an empty lot, fail to maintain it to code, and then offer a defense that it's too expensive to keep it up. Governmental police powers are quite adequate to compel compliance.
All this is quite separate from the other point you bring up, which is that affordable and decent housing is going to require socializing costs. In fact, there's no reason government shouldn't engage in more public-private partnerships to help fund affordable housing as part of mixed-income residential planning. But I don't buy the argument that minimal living standards are an unwarranted intrusion on the liberty of rentiers -- and I dont think you do, either. If payday loans can be deemed predatory, can't "environmentally hazardous" rental units also be?
Re: What if the problem of poverty is that it’s profitable to other people?
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't Communism very similar to your perfect world? All the people were provided for and they worked for everyone and everyone was equal. However, that didn't work out too well. In any system, some folk will always squatter and some will always attempt to gain power/advantage. Your world sounds too much like Atlas Shrugged.
The thing to realize here is that the number of humans who need to do work building/operating/maintaining the machinery that keeps everyone taken care of decreases over time. It's perfectly reasonable to expect a point in the future where most of the time, zero direct human work is required in order to provide for all humans. The issue is getting over the mental hurdle of enabling such a society. The technology is ac…
Frankly, I don't see that this is perfectly reasonable to expect. TANSTAAFL. Food still has to be produced. Energy still has to be produced. All that stuff has to be paid for somehow or the producers stop producing for the freeloaders.
What you think of as a mental hurdle I see as a way of discerning what is mine from what is yours. Show me a developed nation where a person actually doesn't have any personal property.
Without personal property rights, people will stop producing for others and society will fail. Why would I be willing to trade my load of firewood to you for your butchered hog? I'd just take your hog and not bother with providing you a share of firewood. And, in that system if you came around to get a share of my firewood, you'd disappear.
I believe that if a person doesn't have their needs met, they just don't deserve to have them met. (I'm not talking about a moralistic judgement here. Its more like the universe has just arranged itself in response to the unlucky person's actions.)
For example, 3 years ago, I got a hammer and a saw and started building a shed. I sold it and bought the materials to build another. I sold that one too. Today, I own a company that manufactures sheds and employs a few people.
I'm now much better off than I was because I decided to take advantage of people willing to buy my product. I now have employees who build my buildings and I profit from them, too. Is this a bad thing? I don't think so, because several of my employees were unemployed and needing work when I hired them.
What's fair about Capitalism is that anyone has the opportunity to make something work. If a person doesn't want to take advantage of this and better their lot, then I believe they have no right to bitch about us making money and having nice things. Let them suffer paycheck to paycheck.
Re: What if the problem of poverty is that it’s profitable to other people?
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder how Monopoly would play if you got assessed for Income Tax when you passed Go, or perhaps every fifth turn, instead of when you landed on a particular square.
I also wonder how it would go, if it were cashless. Our problem is always that we run out of cash, at some point.
This already exists http://www.debtproofliving.com/Portals/0/Blog/images/2007/09...
Re: What if the problem of poverty is that it’s profitable to other people?
#229People in poverty use services and consume goods. Someone provides those goods and services. Would they be better off if every business closed their doors to the impoverished, so as to not "make a buck off the poor"? Of course not! The trailer park owner in the article owns 131 units and "makes" (presumably grosses) $400K a year. Those units are about $250 per month, hardly the stuff of Viking-style pillaging, IMO. T…
Predatory businesses are still exploitation. > Building such a business (and I assume running a 131 unit mobile home park) is absolutely work, the value of which is evident by the paying tenants. Running a sweatshop is still work, the value of which is evident by its customers. Just because someone needs to work or a place to live doesn't make it right or commendable.
> Predatory businesses are still exploitation.
I don't think providing housing for an average of $250 / month is exploitation or predatory.
In fact, a number of mobile home communities are beginning to cater towards child molesters only, because child molesters need homes too. (also, the police tend to hang around sex-offenders and check up on them, so they also make good tenants).
Win/Win for everyone. Sex offenders get a home, and can start rebuilding their lives (although some sex offenses shouldn't be a permanent black-mark on a person's life, but that's a different story). The entrepreneur gets reliable tenants who are otherwise under-served, and the regular checkups from the Police ensure that the unsavory types stay away.
As long as it is profitable, people will build more homes. And as people build homes, the poor and exploited get a chance to rebuild their lives. Now a serious concern is the businesses who exploit their tenants... but if the supply is high enough then the tenants will be able to find new homes / mobile home communities.
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The main problem are the towns who are making mobile homes ILLEGAL, because they find that poor people are unsavory and the town wants to forcibly gentrify themselves.
Elitists are scared of mobile home communities that explicitly cater to say, sex offenders, or poor people, or other "unsavory" types. Not in my community, hell, not even CLOSE to my community / backyard. Think of the children!
That's the problem. Not the people who are building mobile homes, but the fact that mobile homes are slowly becoming straight up illegal in huge portions of communities.
Re: What if the problem of poverty is that it’s profitable to other people?
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
So are you claiming that the tenants mentioned are somehow worse off than if those trailers weren't available for rent at all? For something to be unethical, someone has to be harmed by it, yes?
Ethics is not binary. It is ethical to provide shelter. It is more ethical to provide shelter without profiting. The landlord has expenses, including perhaps a vacation, but they should be minimized. I dont have much beef with the trailer park owner in question, but you are simplifying the variables at play. The net win for everyone would be providing shelter at absolute minimum cost, including for the people maintai…
Similarly, employees should accept the bare minimum salary they need to live on(perhaps with a modest vacation). Anything above this is unethical, since they are now profiting off of their employer.
In both cases, you are essentially condemning the person to stay in that position forever with no chance of advancement. It reminds me of the parable of the talents[1]; I tend to agree with its conclusion that the guy who manages 30 skyscrapers should be given this recently-built batch of 12 to manage, since he's already demonstrated competence. It's hard to make this actually happen if you take everything he has except a pittance, so his purchasing power is equal to that of somebody who has no business managing skyscrapers.
[1] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+25%3A14...