From top to bottom, Americans can virtue-signal like nobody's business. But material conditions of most of society in the US indicate a total failure of governance.
> Of course to some extent they have to actually represent our interests, they can't be completely corrupt....
I'm reminded of something I read regarding US foreign policy a while ago. The gist of it was that Washington likes it when the compradors it props up abroad are popular, because it makes the job of exploiting the locals easier, but their cooperation in exploitation tends to make them unpopular. This same kind of contradiction applies with the rulers that the capitalists choose for us in the US.
> With this kind of talk they aim to calm the minds of the landlords, big and small, and of all those invested in the housing market.
"All those invested in the housing market" is a pretty big group. A quick web search suggests that about 2/3rds of homes in the US are owner occupied. Of the remaining 1/3 of homes, I don't know what proportion are "mom & pop" landlords vs big companies, but I would imagine that it's a non-trivial chunk. That's a whole lot of people invested in the housing market. When we talk about making housing affordable, they hear "declining property values" and "underwater mortgages".
I'm reminded of a quote from Michael Parenti in "Blackshirts & Reds" or his "Reflections on the Overthrow of Communism" talk. He says, "in most communist countries, one got the impression that everyone as a worker seemed to be conspiring against everyone as a consumer." I think a similar dynamic is at play with housing in the US-- everyone as a housing investor is conspiring against everyone as a housing consumer.
Those incentives to conspire against the consumer are strong too. I've lived most of my adult life either in collective situations or as a renter until I left the US, but I looked up at the last house I rented in the US in a lower-middle-class / working class neighborhood, and the assessed value went from ~$120k in 2014 to ~$320k today. If I had bought that house, it would be like having a side gig that generates an extra $1660/mo in passive income. I can see why people do it!
It doesn't make any sense to me why used houses should go up in price rather than down, but they do (at least in the parts of the US people want to live in), and I think it's important to recognize the incentives in place that keep it that way. Regardless of whether we think they should be (and they shouldn't), homes are as much a financial investment as a place to live in America, and we need to keep that in mind when we advocate for change.
yes, you're so right about all that, and when i said "those invested in the housing market" i knew i was talking about roughly half of society. this is our biggest problem -- this is what keeps the middle class feeling stable, which is exactly the same thing that keeps the renting class feeling (and being) in a state of precarity. the two phenomenae can't continue to coexist, and worsen, forever, i assume...!
@Animal Farm Pig Thank you for your remark about keeping the financial investment in mind when we advocate for change.
The main reason used houses go up in value is inflation - building a house would cost so much more today than it cost to build that 50 year old house in 1974. The utility of a new and old house is essentially the same. In many cases an older house may be more desirable than a new one.
Of course many houses have gone up much more than inflation. But many others, in less desirable areas, have gone up less or even gone down in value. And all houses have gone down in value over short periods of time. In the end, I think rising costs explain most of the increase.
@David I am curious what sort of solutions you advocate for the problem of affordable housing? Just rent control everywhere? Public housing? Have you got other ideas?
I’m not necessarily opposed to rent control, though it is awfully complicated to make it fair to both tenants and landlords. Public housing has generally not worked very well, at least where I am familiar with it (NYC). The limited rent control in New York has been wonderful for some people, abused by many, and rents are still sky high overall.
It is nice to treat everyone with respect, and call them “sir” or “ma’am”. Except just last week here in very liberal Burlington, Vermont my pretty liberal, very polite buddy picked up his takeout and said “Thank you ma’am”. They exploded, calling him names and accusing him of misgendering them. He got upset, the food was free and they got fired. I think this relates to today’s column and your one from last week even more. I will admit, it’s kind of funny, in a really mean way. Maybe everyone learned a lesson?
just yesterday i went with my two youngest kids to the mechanic to pick up our car (after some random guy attacked one of the tires and flattened it the other night). the mechanic said "hi girls" to my kids, and the 8-year-old, a boy with long hair, said "i'm not a girl." i said "but when you're a boy with long hair, that's going to happen sometimes." and everyone understood! if only interactions in the world could go like that more often...
Okay, that reminds me of a nicer one of my own. We belong to a pretty progressive Congregational church (a lot more progressive than me, to be sure). Probably about 20 years ago, when my daughter was a little girl, our pastor announced our first gay marriage, then asked the two women to stand up. My daughter said in a much too loud voice “Mommy, where are their husbands?” People chuckled, but my wife was mortified. Luckily I was at work.
Some very good points. And thank you for the time you put in to share your thinking. A couple of questions/critiques though (offered in the way of conversation).
Are you saying that the US from the 1930’s through the 1970’s was the way things should be? If you ask me, in a lot of ways, it was pretty damn good - at least in terms of taxation and support of the vast middle of the country. Which brings me to my second nit pick - it seems to me you are rolling a few too many distinct issues (economics, social issues, class, race, etc) into one for the purpose of a critique of the “left” but I think doing so risks generalization at the expense of the individual issues. By way of example, I think we have made progress in some areas of civil rights (though of course we have to constantly battle backsliding). Gay marriage is a huge victory and of great importance. So too was much that was accomplished by people of color - though again I think we need to be much stronger in our refusal to go back on things like voting rights, justice, and affirmative action. Having said that I do see your point about housing and economics in general. The Democratic Party has to a degree forgotten who “brought us” to the dance. And Dems would do very well to lean more into more progressive economic and especially tax policies. In all truth I think a big part of the problem is that a lot of the Democrats in power have gotten too removed from the realities of the middle class. In any case, again thank you for thinking this through and then sharing it out. Such reflection is much appreciated and needed.
i guess the whole concept of "the left" involves the rolling of lots of different issues into one thing. it's on purpose, and it exists. as i said in the essay, in the 60's it was called "the movement." also i mentioned about imperialism and racism during the span in question, so no, the 30s-60's period is definitely not the ideal. killing millions of vietnamese and koreans on totally crazy pretenses is way not ok. i think progress on some things is important, which i also mentioned in the essay. comment appreciated regardless!
Agreed on the 30’s the ‘70’s being terrible on the social and civil rights front. But on the taxation and class front, they were pretty great. We had a middle class that was the envy of the world. And we could have it again if we would return to even a portion of the taxation of the rich that was commonplace then (a time when, btw, it’s not like there weren’t millionaires!! There just weren’t billionaires and a huge portion of the country’s wealth in the hands of a fraction of a percentage of our population).
Great article. A couple passages made me think--
> Of course to some extent they have to actually represent our interests, they can't be completely corrupt....
I'm reminded of something I read regarding US foreign policy a while ago. The gist of it was that Washington likes it when the compradors it props up abroad are popular, because it makes the job of exploiting the locals easier, but their cooperation in exploitation tends to make them unpopular. This same kind of contradiction applies with the rulers that the capitalists choose for us in the US.
> With this kind of talk they aim to calm the minds of the landlords, big and small, and of all those invested in the housing market.
"All those invested in the housing market" is a pretty big group. A quick web search suggests that about 2/3rds of homes in the US are owner occupied. Of the remaining 1/3 of homes, I don't know what proportion are "mom & pop" landlords vs big companies, but I would imagine that it's a non-trivial chunk. That's a whole lot of people invested in the housing market. When we talk about making housing affordable, they hear "declining property values" and "underwater mortgages".
I'm reminded of a quote from Michael Parenti in "Blackshirts & Reds" or his "Reflections on the Overthrow of Communism" talk. He says, "in most communist countries, one got the impression that everyone as a worker seemed to be conspiring against everyone as a consumer." I think a similar dynamic is at play with housing in the US-- everyone as a housing investor is conspiring against everyone as a housing consumer.
Those incentives to conspire against the consumer are strong too. I've lived most of my adult life either in collective situations or as a renter until I left the US, but I looked up at the last house I rented in the US in a lower-middle-class / working class neighborhood, and the assessed value went from ~$120k in 2014 to ~$320k today. If I had bought that house, it would be like having a side gig that generates an extra $1660/mo in passive income. I can see why people do it!
It doesn't make any sense to me why used houses should go up in price rather than down, but they do (at least in the parts of the US people want to live in), and I think it's important to recognize the incentives in place that keep it that way. Regardless of whether we think they should be (and they shouldn't), homes are as much a financial investment as a place to live in America, and we need to keep that in mind when we advocate for change.
yes, you're so right about all that, and when i said "those invested in the housing market" i knew i was talking about roughly half of society. this is our biggest problem -- this is what keeps the middle class feeling stable, which is exactly the same thing that keeps the renting class feeling (and being) in a state of precarity. the two phenomenae can't continue to coexist, and worsen, forever, i assume...!
@Animal Farm Pig Thank you for your remark about keeping the financial investment in mind when we advocate for change.
The main reason used houses go up in value is inflation - building a house would cost so much more today than it cost to build that 50 year old house in 1974. The utility of a new and old house is essentially the same. In many cases an older house may be more desirable than a new one.
Of course many houses have gone up much more than inflation. But many others, in less desirable areas, have gone up less or even gone down in value. And all houses have gone down in value over short periods of time. In the end, I think rising costs explain most of the increase.
@David I am curious what sort of solutions you advocate for the problem of affordable housing? Just rent control everywhere? Public housing? Have you got other ideas?
I’m not necessarily opposed to rent control, though it is awfully complicated to make it fair to both tenants and landlords. Public housing has generally not worked very well, at least where I am familiar with it (NYC). The limited rent control in New York has been wonderful for some people, abused by many, and rents are still sky high overall.
It is nice to treat everyone with respect, and call them “sir” or “ma’am”. Except just last week here in very liberal Burlington, Vermont my pretty liberal, very polite buddy picked up his takeout and said “Thank you ma’am”. They exploded, calling him names and accusing him of misgendering them. He got upset, the food was free and they got fired. I think this relates to today’s column and your one from last week even more. I will admit, it’s kind of funny, in a really mean way. Maybe everyone learned a lesson?
just yesterday i went with my two youngest kids to the mechanic to pick up our car (after some random guy attacked one of the tires and flattened it the other night). the mechanic said "hi girls" to my kids, and the 8-year-old, a boy with long hair, said "i'm not a girl." i said "but when you're a boy with long hair, that's going to happen sometimes." and everyone understood! if only interactions in the world could go like that more often...
Okay, that reminds me of a nicer one of my own. We belong to a pretty progressive Congregational church (a lot more progressive than me, to be sure). Probably about 20 years ago, when my daughter was a little girl, our pastor announced our first gay marriage, then asked the two women to stand up. My daughter said in a much too loud voice “Mommy, where are their husbands?” People chuckled, but my wife was mortified. Luckily I was at work.
Some very good points. And thank you for the time you put in to share your thinking. A couple of questions/critiques though (offered in the way of conversation).
Are you saying that the US from the 1930’s through the 1970’s was the way things should be? If you ask me, in a lot of ways, it was pretty damn good - at least in terms of taxation and support of the vast middle of the country. Which brings me to my second nit pick - it seems to me you are rolling a few too many distinct issues (economics, social issues, class, race, etc) into one for the purpose of a critique of the “left” but I think doing so risks generalization at the expense of the individual issues. By way of example, I think we have made progress in some areas of civil rights (though of course we have to constantly battle backsliding). Gay marriage is a huge victory and of great importance. So too was much that was accomplished by people of color - though again I think we need to be much stronger in our refusal to go back on things like voting rights, justice, and affirmative action. Having said that I do see your point about housing and economics in general. The Democratic Party has to a degree forgotten who “brought us” to the dance. And Dems would do very well to lean more into more progressive economic and especially tax policies. In all truth I think a big part of the problem is that a lot of the Democrats in power have gotten too removed from the realities of the middle class. In any case, again thank you for thinking this through and then sharing it out. Such reflection is much appreciated and needed.
i guess the whole concept of "the left" involves the rolling of lots of different issues into one thing. it's on purpose, and it exists. as i said in the essay, in the 60's it was called "the movement." also i mentioned about imperialism and racism during the span in question, so no, the 30s-60's period is definitely not the ideal. killing millions of vietnamese and koreans on totally crazy pretenses is way not ok. i think progress on some things is important, which i also mentioned in the essay. comment appreciated regardless!
Agreed on the 30’s the ‘70’s being terrible on the social and civil rights front. But on the taxation and class front, they were pretty great. We had a middle class that was the envy of the world. And we could have it again if we would return to even a portion of the taxation of the rich that was commonplace then (a time when, btw, it’s not like there weren’t millionaires!! There just weren’t billionaires and a huge portion of the country’s wealth in the hands of a fraction of a percentage of our population).