“In many cases rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city, except for bombing”
– Economist Assar Lindbeck, who as it happens was a socialist
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Your periodic reminder that…February 26th, 2023 |
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Yes.
That prices should be set by supply and demand, not governments edicts, is the most basic law of economics – well known for centuries.
So when people claim that governments putting out rent control edicts or minimum wage laws (a wage is a price – the price of the work) or other interference in the price system, they “have good intentions” or what happens afterwards is “unintended consequences” they are mistaken. The terrible consequences are well known in advance – they are not unintended.
I think this needs to be updated for modern times by adding “… or defunding your police.”
Correct Fraser Orr – the people who demand that police be pulled out of certain areas know well that this will increase the number of murders (especially of black people) – that is what they want, chaos and death as an excuse for establishing a “new society” later – there is nothing “unintended” about the consequences.
As for basic economics – enforce a price higher than the market price and you will (other factors being equal) get a surplus produced (and wasted – for example lots of unemployed or underemployed people), and enforce a price lower than the market price lower than the market price and you will get a shortage – homelessness and so on.
Contrary to what is sometimes I supposed, policy is NOT made by a few elected politicians – there may be an input by politicians, but there are also officials and academic experts. They perfectly well what the terrible consequences of policies as “rent control” will be – they have always known.
That is why it is annoying when people (including good people such as the late Milton Friedman and F.A. Hayek) talk of the “unintended consequences” of government intervention – they are not unintended, which is why telling the politicians and officials about the terrible policies will not stop the policies (because they already know what the terrible consequences will be).
If the last few years have had any good in them, the good has been to cure people of the idea that governments only do harm unintentionally.
The deaths caused by denying, indeed active smearing, Early Treatment of Covid. The terrible harm done by the medically useless “lockdowns” – profiting a small group of Corporations and individuals, and increasing the power of the state, at the expense of everyone else. The deaths and injuries from injections from the international Corporate State that were not “effective” and were certainly NOT “safe”.
As Perry so often says – “the state is not your friend”.
Paul Samuelson, who wrote the introduction, was also once a socialist – in the bizarre misuse of language in our age, a “liberal” (the meaning of the words “liberal” and “liberalism” being reversed in the modern age, from meaning roll back the state – to meaning expand the state, – especially in the United States).
For example, Professor Samuelson once predicted that the Soviet Union would economically overtake the United States. He later corrected himself – Samuelson was not a philosopher and did correct himself, so perhaps he gets a pass.
The socialist (socialist – collective control of land and the rest of the “means of production”) philosopher Bertrand Russell also called himself a “liberal” or even a “Whig” – in the case of Russell, he knew very well that he was misusing language (reversing the meaning of words) and did it to annoy and provoke – he should not get a pass (because he knew what he was doing).
The British cultural establishment presents Bertrand Russell as some sort of great thinker and reveres him – just as they revere H.G. Wells, who wanted to gas vast numbers of human beings, and George Bernard Shaw – who wanted to kill any person who could not “justify their existence” to the satisfaction of a government board.
“Ah how ignorant the cultural establishment are”.
They are NOT ignorant – for example, they know that Bertrand Russell demanded submission to first Nazi Germany and then to the Soviet Union and helped create “the hundred” a group within CND (which he also helped create) that, for example, organised the escape of the Soviet Agent George Blake from prison.
And the cultural and intellectual establishment also know all about H.G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw and the other “Fabians” (for example they know about the “Fabian Window” – and it most certainly is NOT “a joke”, it is hiding evil in plain sight).
The cultural and intellectual establishment, who dominate the formation of policies proposed by such groups as “SAGE”, know (know very well) that Russell, Wells, Shaw (and-so-on) were evil men – and they ardently admire these men.
That, gentle reader, should tell you all you need to know about the cultural and intellectual establishment and the policies, medical, economic, and other, that they push.
In many cases? Should that not be in every case? Or are there some exceptions?
The worst mistake that has been made in my life time was the mistake made by “our side” (for want of a better term) in 1989 that the ideological struggle had been won.
Some far sighted people realised that this as a terrible mistake at the time – I was NOT one of these far sighted people, I fell for the “we have won” line.
In a way we did win – the Berlin Wall did came down, and Eastern Europe is vastly better now than it was in 1989. However, we took our eyes off the ideological struggle at home – which allowed Collectivists (both Marxist and NON Marxist Collectivists) to take over the government machine in the United Kingdom the United States and so on. And allowed Collectivists to take over the Corporations (which we fondly assumed were apolitical) – to such an extent that now airline pilots are now being picked on the basis of skin colour rather than individual ability.
Only a couple of years after “we have won” – such things as “Agenda 21” (now called Agenda 2030 or “Sustainable Development Goals” or Environmental and Social Governance, ESG, including the “cultural aspect” – such things as Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, DEI, with its censorship and-so-on) were being nodded through by Western governments and the vast Corporations.
Yes Saint-Simon is not Karl Marx – but the brand name on the boot does not matter when that boot is stamping down on your face.
Tyranny is tyranny – whether it is Marxist tyranny, or the tyranny the international Corporate State is working to create.
As for housing – we know what the plan is. Most people packed into tiny apartments in government-corporate controlled blocks in “smart cities”.
It is not a “conspiracy” – because the totalitarian plan is out in the open, indeed they boast about it.
I’ve a rather technical question regarding rent control schemes. In the US, there are provisions for when the government takes control, or seizes your property, they have to compensate you. Could placing rent controls over landlords be a form of taking without compensation?
It seems that if you own property, you should be able to use it as you see fit. within reason of course. The government telling you that you may charge only so much, or that you cannot evict bad tenants seems as if control has been taken from you by the government.
If I’m correct in my reasoning, would such an appeal bear good or bad fruit?
Bombing is quickly over, leaving the city to rebuild. Bad, but not a catastrophe.
Rent control lasts for decades, and attacks those who might try to rebuild.
Rent control is worse than bombing.
There is a distinction in American law (in most jurisdictions – states vary) between “taking” – i.e., removing all or very significant freedom of use and possession and profit – and “reasonable regulation.”
The state can tell me I cannot use my property in ways that hurt my neighbors or community. It can enforce zoning regulations. It can tax me on the value of the property. It can take away my highway access. There are many ways short of outright theft with which the state can limit my use and enjoyment of my own property.
The difference between that and outright “taking” isn’t really a brightline difference, and varies by jurisdiction.
In most jurisdictions, rent control laws have been found to be reasonable regulation of property – i.e., not a “taking.” There may well be some point – “rent may only be $1 per month” – where it transforms into a taking. (But the state may also change zoning such that my rental property may no longer be rented out, while leaving me all other uses of the property, which in most places is NOT a taking, so, like I say, it’s case by case.)
(Addendum to my above:)
During Covid, my urban Minnesota county (and many others) imposed an eviction moratorium. Landlords were not getting paid for more than a year. Many bankruptcies. Courts ruled that was NOT a taking. It was a reasonable regulation, a use of the state’s police powers.
Go figure.
bobby b – same here and it has led to many tenants building up debts that can not possibly be repaid.
With such a bad debt history no private landlord will now touch them – so they are left to the state (see how it works).
As for the counts in many American States – Covid showed that Constitutions and laws only work if judges are not intellectually corrupt, and they often are intellectually corrupt. The blatant rigging of the 2020 election and 2022 elections in some States (denied by the Wall Street Journal and the rest of the “Controlled Opposition” of RINO filth) could not have taken place if the courts were not corrupt – but the Covid cases showed that the courts are corrupted.
The end game with housing is to get most people in government and corporate controlled blocks in “smart cities” where computer control will snuff out what is left of liberty and the only “money” will be lights on the screens of computers and mobile phones – lights that the powerful can turn off if they dislike someone (say they are dissenting on some political or cultural matter – the bank accounts of such people are already being attacked).
And the end game on food is to get people dependent on manufactured food under the control of governments and pet corporations – that is why family farms are under attack, processing and distribution is centralised (under a few corporations) by regulations, and even artificial food (so called “plant based” which is actually chemical based) is being pushed.
When the international Corporate State eventually (eventually) controls your home, your energy (smart meters), your money (“digital”), and your food – they have you by the throat.
“unintended consequences” – no, INTENDED consequences.
“conspiracy theory” – no, because they openly boast of their plans. There is no conspiracy – it is all out in the open. It is just that some people can not admit to themselves what is happening.
It is also, in a sick way, rather funny.
In the name of “Green” of “getting back to nature” and “being at one with the environment” – most people are eventually going to be “nudged” into artificial environments (blocks in Smart Cities) where their food, and everything else, is also going to be artificial and computer controlled – they are going to be computer controlled (its “the science”).
Escape? How? Your electric car (if you have one) will only work where computer control allows it to work.
“Literally walk out, on your own legs – and learn to ride a horse, and live like Jim Bridger or Kit Carson”.
That is a much tougher life than many think – few men could live in the way that Jim Bridger and Kit Carson did.
And the frontier men of the 19th century did not face computer controlled drones – hunting them down.
“These areas have been rewilded – you may not live off the land here citizen”.
The Cantillon Effect (the Credit Money going to the connected – so they can buy real assets, such as land, before the value of the “money” drops) works with the regulations to centralise economic power in a few hands.
And if anyone thinks that is an “unintended” consequence – I have a nice bridge to sell them.
It is as “unintended” as the Covid lockdowns and eviction moratoriums bankrupting small business enterprises and small landlords – and concentrating the economy in the hands of entities like Amazon and BlackRock (the latter buying up lots of homes and other properties).
Some conservatives and libertarians are so alenated that they do not accept that Mr Putin is an evil man (which he is) – but some do understand that he is an evil man, but are still not interested in fighting him, because they hold that their true enemy is much closer to home (their own governments and the corporations allied to them). And they see President Z standing next to people such as Mr Biden and Mr Trudeau (their sworn enemies) and praising them.
I do NOT accept that position (for example if I was in President Z’s position I would praise anyone who gave me military support – even if I privately wanted to stake them out over an ant hill) – but I do understand it.
Unless there is a real change in policy (a move away from the Corporate State – “Sustainable Development Goals”, DEI, SEG, all the rest of it) the West will be dead. And a dead society is not worth fighting for.
Looking at the demographics of the West, not just the low fertility rates – but also such things as family breakdown and moral breakdown (also carefully worked for – over many decades of evil policy), the West may will be biologically dying – as well as culturally dying.
There is, even now, time to change the direction of policy (DEI, SEG – all the rest of it, including Credit Money) – but time is running out.
“You should not say SEG – you should say ESG” I do not really care – for example a better way of describing DEI would be Diversity, Equity and Inclusion – DIE.
Just need the right people in charge of it, obviously…
Paul,
I think you are wrong. Partly. For sure there are quite a few folks who know exactly what evils they persue but their trick is to persuade a lot of other folks who fall for what seems like a good idea. These are the folks whose heart is perhaps in the right place but whose brain isn’t. If I may be so bold you know a heck of a lot more about political economy than 99.9% of the population and perhaps that is why you falsely equate “should know” with “know”. For sure dicking with markets like this is a bad idea and that has been known since whenever but that doesn’t mean it is known by everyone – far from it. What is the circulation of Samizdata compared to the Guardian? Or to put it another way James Maxwell published his equations of electromagnetism over 150 years ago so they are “known”. I know them. But then I’m a physics graduate. I guess the same can be said of electrical engineers and such but what of the rest of the populace? Lots of things are known, demonstrable truths but are not known that widely. That is true about physics. It is true of economics and pretty much everything.
I do think there is hope though. The whole Trans juggernaut has bust an axle. JK Rowling showed whe was the most powerful woman in Scotland and not Nicola Sturgeon and Sam Smith has been justifiably ridiculed for being “non-binary” (he has a beard! I do not want to speculate on what he has in his absurd pantaloons) by, amongst others, lefties like Bob Geldof. This is a damn good start. It is the realisation that language is derived from reality and not the other way around. The hill of reality is the first place to defend. After that all else may follow.
The Frankfurt School stuff is the real enemy and it’s aim is the reconstruction of reality in its own image rather than what actually is. It does abuse people’s innate sense of fairness in a horrid way by perpetuating the idea of [insert whatever]-phobia. Except, whilst the source, it isn’t the real problem. The real problem is not a bunch of “academics” but the astonishing traction they have gained with ordinary people. And we are all vulnerable because it is just so pervasive.
Reality always, always gets the final vote in all matters. You can propose and enact the most absurd things, and when they prove not to actually, y’know… Work? That’s the breaking point.
The current lot of idiots running the world seem to be hell-bent on winning some imagined race to the bottom, wherein they’re certain that they’re going to be the lords of creation. The problem for them is that the further they go into nutjob territory, the fewer people are willing to follow them, and the less power they have.
It’s like they don’t understand the actual effects of what they’re doing. The news media, for example? Does anyone involved in that enterprise recognize that the main reason they’re losing their damn jobs and the prestige of their position is because they’ve blown their credibility, and nobody wants to buy the bullshit they’re selling any more?
I used to read two, three major newspapers a day, and bought a couple of Sunday editions from around the world at the local newstand wherever I was, just to try to understand what was going on. Do you know why I don’t do that, anymore? Because they became so egregiously propagandistic that I could no longer stand to read their bullshit, and didn’t want to support it. That’s why nobody buys the local paper any more–It got bought up by a bunch of woke dumbasses about ten years ago, and now the circulation has dropped to the point where they’re bitching about not being able to keep the doors open. Yet, they can’t be bothered to report even the most basic local news, like what is going on at the city council meetings…And, when they do, you usually find out that they are either lying, mistaken, or totally delusional about what was said. It’s crazy that they expect people to pay for their products and services when they can’t even fulfill the most basic requirements of good journalism
As the media goes, so too will everything else. When the mismatch between reality and the woke policies becomes undeniable, people will quit listening to them, and all that power they think they’ve captured will evaporate in a puff of their own manifest incompetence.
You’ll note what happened to the Soviet Union and Nicolai Ceaucescu. So, too, will pass the era of the woke. Eventually. Their own egregious hubris and essential incompetence will insure that.
Reality always, always gets the final vote in all matters.
But does it? Is not perhaps a dream you have? How do you know? Perhaps you are correct but that raises the question of time-scale and eventually covers a lot of ground. Not only that but a total collapse – as happened to the Minoans or the Romans could lead to… God knows what.
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
It could be George Jetson… It could be Mad Max…
I know which I’d prefer but then I was never into back-combing – even in the ’80s.
@NickM,
You’re thinking that I meant that in a good way. The fall of the Western Roman Empire was very much “reality ensuing” from the nonsensical policies of the old Imperial way. It was a lot more attractive to the various former provinces of said Western Roman Empire to become non-Roman because that meant that the dead hand of Roman Imperial bureaucracy and the imperial nobility was lifted off their necks at the same time… Which ushered in a whole host of good things, along with the bad. The moribund Imperial Roman government hadn’t been doing them any good whatsoever, aside from enabling the trade network that was slowly crumbling. Conquest by the various Germanic tribes only sped up the process.
Ground truth and reality will always penetrate the thickest of skulls. Whether it takes the form of enlightenment or a bullet? That’s up to the individual idiot.