Does having an AirBNB setup make someone deserving of the guillotine or does that only apply to owners of multiple houses? What about apartments?

Please explain your reasoning as well.

  • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    4
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    3 months ago

    Unless you can formulate clear arguments as to why government management of rentals cannot work as a concept, you should not dismiss it as a solution.

    It’s not that it cannot work as a concept, it just has not worked when it’s been done so far. Typically the issues come down to funding. Politicians have to be elected, and politicians control funding. In order to get elected, politicians cut taxes–because everyone wants lower taxes, right?–which means that they have to cut funding. Typically the funding cuts are to the most vulnerable populations. So you’d have to create a system where public housing couldn’t be systematically de- and underfunded. I don’t know that even a constitutional amendment would be sufficient (see also: the entire history of 2A, Ohio trying to block the amendment to their constitution re: reproductive freedoms, etc.)

    I’m generally opposed to continuing to repeat the same mistakes and expecting different results. If gov’t funded housing has always resulted in shoddy, run-down, and unsafe (both in terms of structural integrity and in terms of crime) housing, then we need to fundamentally rethink how we’re going about it to ensure we aren’t repeating the same problems, rather than just throwing more money at it.

    • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
      cake
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      3 months ago

      it just has not worked when it’s been done so far

      Big, BIG “citation needed” on that one chief. Just speaking from my own experience growing up in England, council housing schemes were fantastically effective at getting people into housing with reasonable rental costs. And similar schemes have been successful all across Europe. I’m told there are similar success stories in the US as well.

      I think you’re just picking one or two bad examples and just treating that as the whole dataset because it fits your prior assumptions. It’s easy to do, because people complain when government efforts don’t work (and often they complain even when they do; there are plenty of “bad” government programs that are actually fantastically effective, people just moan about their imperfections to the point where everyone assumes they’re broken) but rarely celebrate the successes.