For some reason this didn't seem to post on Friday.
Incidentally, while staying in a Lake Arrowhead hotel room this weekend,
I noticed the incompatibility of mutualism with renting hotel rooms.
The alternative would be to have people buy their hotel room, then
re-sell it when they leave. Same basic result as you have today, but
highly inconvenient if you need to get a $50,000 loan just to sleep
overnight somewhere.
--
Prof. Bryan Caplan
Department of Economics George Mason University
http://www.bcaplan.com [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"He wrote a letter, but did not post it because he felt that no one
would have understood what he wanted to say, and besides it was not
necessary that anyone but himself should understand it."
Leo Tolstoy, *The Cossacks*
--- Begin Message ---
Kevin Carson wrote:
> I meant slum occupants would simply become de facto owners, and stop paying
> rent--was that your understanding?
That's what it sounded like, but it was hard to believe anyone would say
it.
> In the transition to a mutualist society
> and the expropriation of landlords, I'd be willing to negotiate some
> settlement in which landlords were paid up to the equivalent of what they
> could have saved from wage labor during their lifetime. Many wage earners
> are frugal and put their savings into small rental properties as a form of
> retirement investment, and I'd hate to see anyone robbed of the actual
> proceeds of his labor. But big slumlords and owners of vast tracts of land
> would be SOL.
So your proposal amounts to the following:
1. Partial expropriation of existing landlords.
2. A legal maximum rent of 0 forever afterwards.
After all, no one would ever build new rental property after your
proposal was implemented. The second part of the proposal just amounts
to a much more extreme version of New York rent control. People would
get around the policy by switching to owner occupancy, and anyone
lacking in current resources who doesn't qualify for a loan would be
homeless. Wonderful.
Of course, if landlords had any warning, they would evict all of their
tenants and sell outright ownership - once against mimicing the long-run
response to rent control. So even the first part of the proposal would
not accomplish anything. You'd manage to kill the convenience of
renting without doing anything for anyone.
Frankly, this is one of the silliest ideas I've heard someone advocate
in a long time.
--
Prof. Bryan Caplan
Department of Economics George Mason University
http://www.bcaplan.com [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"He wrote a letter, but did not post it because he felt that no one
would have understood what he wanted to say, and besides it was not
necessary that anyone but himself should understand it."
Leo Tolstoy, *The Cossacks*
--- End Message ---
