Ask HN: Anyone else feels the commoditization of real estate is unethical?

Post by bigtex88 » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 1:43 PM UTC

etothepii wrote: post #15

perilunar wrote: post #8

"Men did not make the earth. It is the value of the improvements only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property. Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds" — Thomas Paine, Agrarian Justice , 1797

This is of course why Smith argued for a tax on the undeveloped value of the land. Sadly not easy to work out, but much harder to avoid and much fairer in the sense that the undeveloped value of your land is that part which benefits most from the services provided by the state.

Post by ameister14 » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 1:43 PM UTC

sudden_dystopia wrote: post #28

sys_64738 wrote: post #14

People have been landlords throughout history and renters can only rent if they can pay. Plenty of other generations didn’t have an ability to have their own place so the current people who can’t aren’t special. Each individual’s ethics are not always aligned so there is no one rule to fit all.

There is nothing inherently wrong with landlords and rent. Anyone that says otherwise is a tankie. Landlords provide a valuable service. But there cannot be perpetual growth in rents like there is in say the growth of a startup. It’s the corporatization of landlords that is wreaking havoc by forcing them to maximize shareholder wealth. A simple solution is to bar corporations from charging rent for residential proper…

Post by iso1631 » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 1:44 PM UTC

aaaaaaaaata wrote: post #32

smt88 wrote: post #5

I definitely do. It's something that turns a basic necessity into a speculative asset, with a price distorted by the money poured into it. Airbnb is also a deeply harmful influence on housing prices. Imagine if we did the same thing with, say, water: privatized it and then "democratized" ownership of it. It's easy to get retail investors to buy things at inflated, speculative prices, so the price of water would go up…

> Imagine if we did the same thing with, say, water: privatized it and then "democratized" ownership of it. We're watching this happen before our eyes.

Post by bigtex88 » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 1:44 PM UTC

burnerburnito wrote: post #71

jacknews wrote: post #23

IMHO the land belongs to all of us, like the air, and the water. ie '(wo)man is born free' rather than 'born to pay rent to a private owner until such time as they can buy a freehold and pass on the condition'. That doesn't mean you can't have exclusive use of some part of it, how else would we encourage people to take care of the land and develop it. But you should continuously pay everyone else for it's exclusive u…

>but you should continuously pay everyone else for it's exclusive use. So pay rent to the state instead of a private landholder? I found your first paragraph very agreeable and convincing, but this feels like it's just passing the problem on up to the state. Would you just be suggesting that any ownership of land outside of a a single home or apartment be heavily rented/taxed to the government, or literally all use o…

Post by badinsie » Sat, Aug 13, 2022, 1:44 PM UTC