What does the socialist utopia look like?

Yes, we do – but I’d phrase it slightly differently. The lack of a ‘system’ ends up creating this outcome. It’s not like its a complex system designed this way, it’s the result of a less effective system. I think a lot of Tories like to talk about ‘small government’ as being a good thing – they don’t like being told what to do, or having limits placed on their behaviour. It is of course a convenient side-effect of this approach that certain people can make lots of money. I think some people aren’t quite honest with themselves that the potential to make money is why they like the small government idea, and some may not even realise it consciously. However, if they were at the other end of society they’d realise it pretty damn quickly.

I was listening to an interesting Joe podcast the other day where ‘Landlordism’ was under discussion (attack), by and for a mostly millennial audience.

It raised some interesting points, yes Marx was referred to which I know is a sure fire way to turn some people off immediately.
But the point being made was that we actually have sufficient UK housing stock (interviewee’s belief) it’s just there’s too much of that housing stock in private landlords hands and that their ownership is in effect now being subsidised, through housing benefits by the rest of us, which in turn are driven up by “market rates”…

The current narrative would probably have you look upon tenants rather than Landlords as the “scroungers” but perhaps what we don’t tend to do is look at who’s hands the “public money” we spend on various things ultimately ends up in.

I don’t necessarily think we have a designed ‘system’ as such, but we do have some outcomes that look like some are ‘gaming’ an un-planned system.
Sympathetic government and media seem to drive our public discourse such that normal people end up supporting some quite self destructive ideas that manage to benefit the wealthy.
I think it’s based on the lies that hard work will bring prosperity and/or you could be rich too and if you were you don’t want taxing too much.

Perhaps a more pertinent question isn’t how to get to some socialist utopia, but how to make Capitalism actually benefit more of society?

But the point being made was that we actually have sufficient UK housing stock (interviewee’s belief) it’s just there’s too much of that housing stock in private landlords hands and that their ownership is in effect now being subsidised, through housing benefits by the rest of us, which in turn are driven up by “market rates”…

this is flat out not true, we’ve not built homes to match the rate of population growth since the 1930s. OFC, more homes being owned by landloards doesnt look good, but given the outright lack of supply, clobbering landlords out of the market will mostly see higher rents, rather than cheaper homes. Which is a shame as the interviewees opinion is a common one.

More info here: https://worksinprogress.co/issue/why-britain-doesnt-build/

But the point being made was that we actually have sufficient UK housing stock

Yeah, I listened to that podcast, the word ‘roughly’ was doing a lot of heavy lifting when the bloke said we have “roughly the same as the OECD average” – That figure is 468 house per 1000 people, UK has 434 per 1000 people, to get within the normal realms of “roughly” (comparison to similar rich northern European countries, as the OECD figures includes countries in eastern Europe and south America) –  we’d need to build over 3 million houses.

The other thing is that other European countries have larger rental sectors than the UK, France and Germany for instance, and they have nothing like the evolving housing crisis the the UK is experiencing.

Landlords are an easy target and while the private rental market needs urgent reform, they’re not a cartel, they operate in a market, and if the cost of rental is high, that’s becasue of pretty fundamental laws of supply and demand. Our issue is a lack of housing.

The current narrative would probably have you look upon tenants rather than Landlords as the “scroungers”

Its the same with a lot of benefits. Despite the “benefit scroungers” in many cases those people on benefits are working full time (sometimes several jobs) and still not taking home a living wage.

So really who are the benefits subsidising. The worker or the business owner?

For housing. A major problem is the one there is no good incentive for the big housing companies to build sufficient houses of the right type.  Better profit on fewer properties at a higher market price than if the supply met demand. Which was one of the hidden benefits of a proper social housing system.

The other thing is that other European countries have larger rental sectors than the UK, France and Germany for instance, and they have nothing like the evolving housing crisis the the UK is experiencing.

Actually Germany is also very much in a housing affordability crisis, and there is little evidence of the German government taking any action, as like most of the western world they are pandering to the current asset owners with scant regard to the future.

IMO the EU rules on Government housing stock and the requirement to put construction into the hands of corporations has caused damage that will take generations to resolve, if they ever actually decide to allow a housing sector that provides homes instead of profit.

Perhaps a more pertinent question isn’t how to get to some socialist utopia, but how to make Capitalism actually benefit more of society?

I genuinely think we need to move away from a system that works when one group succeed (beyond the dreams of Avarice) only by shafting another part of society and making sure that the middle part is comfortably well off enough so that they’re discouraged from making it more equitable by propagandising at them to make them feel they have something to loose.

Capitalism is not morally neutral. It doesn’t work for the benefit of society.

Yeah, I listened to that podcast, the word ‘roughly’ was doing a lot of heavy lifting when the bloke said we have “roughly the same as the OECD average” – That figure is 468 house per 1000 people, UK has 434 per 1000 people, to get within the normal realms of “roughly” (comparison to similar rich northern European countries, as the OECD figures includes countries in eastern Europe and south America) –  we’d need to build over 3 million houses.

Unfortunately the OECD data is out of date and skewed with so many sub-claims, as to make it pretty useless as a statistic for the current state of affairs.

Still doesn’t stop the argument that UK PLC should be doing something under their own direction, instead of counting on profiteering builders to do it for them, we have the resources to do it quick, where it’s needed most and ability to manage it across the country, or centrally, if required, should be a no brainer for any government wanting to make an actual difference.

making sure that the middle part is comfortably well off enough so that they’re discouraged from making it more equitable

this bit has been going wrong for a while now and has tory party folks seriously concerned

Capitalism is not morally neutral.

I think you could define it as such – in that morals or humanity are not involved in the system.  What it does is allow people to exploit each other, even without wishing to or without even knowing.  For example, even something as fundamental as shopping around for the cheapest item is probably contributing towards the suppression of the working poor.

So really who are the benefits subsidising. The worker or the business owner?

Or its customers?  Who might also be poor?

Landlords are an easy target and while the private rental market needs urgent reform, they’re not a cartel, they operate in a market

Yes, of course. You cannot blame fish for eating each other in a tank when they aren’t fed enough.

“instead of counting on profiteering builders to do it for them”

House builders aren’t profiteering, they are providing the products that give them the highest margin, same as any other private business. Government has failed as they have not managed the morally agnostic market.

Government has also failed to control house prices allowing supply and demand side economics to run out of control, if they had introduced caps on what people could borrow, both with home ownership and buy to let the cost of housing would be much closer to the actual cost of building rather than being driven by what people can afford to borrow.

I think you could define it as such – in that morals or humanity are not involved in the system.

But surely if something has exploitation designed in, it can’t be can it? I mean, its a system designed by humans, calling it “the system” as if humans have no control, is a cop out isn’t it? – Or have I misunderstood what your getting at?

Actually Germany is also very much in a housing affordability crisis

I didn’t know that. Is it the same as UK then, shortage of affordable housing?

Perhaps a more pertinent question isn’t how to get to some socialist utopia, but how to make Capitalism actually benefit more of society?

This is the big political question of our time. Unfortunately never properly addressed by any party.

But surely if something has exploitation designed in, it can’t be can it?

I wouldn’t call it a ‘designed’ system, it sort of appeared organically.  Money evolved to solve a very important problem, and it did it very well.  The problem came when certain people started to obtain a lot of it then worked out how to use that to their advantage without anyone to stop them.  The system we had to design was how to curtail that – taxation, public spending, social security etc – and redistribute wealth.  This wasn’t the only system we designed – the central bank and the stock exchange spring to mind as regulated specifically designed concepts that help create money.  These systems give us the levers to pull to get the outcome desired by those in power.

To give a rather tortured analogy – Karl Benz invented the car, but he didn’t create 21st century traffic problems or climate change.  These things developed organically.  Now governments have a choice, they can either make difficult decisions for the benefit of everyone, or they can just not bother and let congestion get worse and more roads get built.  If they do the latter, that doesn’t mean they are actively creating congestion on purpose, it just means they can’t be bothered to do anything about it. And they justify that by calling it ‘small government’ and ‘letting people get on with their lives’ and ‘personal freedom’ etc.

This is the big political question of our time. Unfortunately never properly addressed by any party.

And yet there are recent examples of how it could work. The Bretton Woods agreeement between western ‘capitalist’ countries set out restrictions and regulations governing the flow of capital and operation of the financial markets with the aim of providing financial stability in the postwar years. That provided the bedrock for western countries to implement the social democratic/socialist policies of the postwar years and it was massively successful. Then of course the system was dismantled in the 70s, fiat currencies were adopted and all the regulations repealed which created a western economy based on credit and debt rather than production. The answer now of course is how to use the characteristics of fiat currencies to benefit the whole of society. The answer to that lies in MMT and the roll-back of globalisation. The US is already on that course and the UK far behind.

Rolling back globalisation – hmm. I’m aware of some of the downsides of this, but there are surely benefits? Is it not better that all our drivetrains are made by a couple of mega corporations that are really really good at it? If each country had its own bike components and frames manufacturers (you think standards proliferation is bad now…) then we’d all need to do basically the same R&D over and over again with varying results.  I think we would end up with worse results, would we not?  And we’d be employing people to do things that are essentially pointless having already been done by someone else, when we could perhaps be employing them with whatever unique businesses we do have?

I’m not advocating anything, this is just discussion.

You seem to have jumped to the most extreme variation possible.

An obvious starter for ten is rolling back globalisation doesnt stop sharing of standards or licencing of patents. Something common prior to globalisation. Where it is trickier though is for the big spend items like chip fabs.

Comparative advantage whilst reasonable at the time it was suggested does overly rely on the idea that nations actually cooperate vs wanting to get a competitive advantage. Its the basic flaw of free markets in that it relies on everyone playing by the same utopian rules. As is all to clear people and countries dont.

Its especially problematic when the comparative advantage is due to a mix of government subsidies and low wages because you then have the problem what happens when their wages increase and you have thrown away your industry? Especially with more advanced stuff built on lots of the basic stuff which you threw away even longer ago.

Hmm.  Yes, it is true that a large amount of manufacturing capability is based on cheap labour because that’s how we’re able to afford to buy all the stuff that they make.  That said, I think they are (currently) happy to have the business that is bringing money into the country.  China seem to be using this money wisely to develop their industry – a bit like Taiwan did with bikes. We started having stuff made there because it was cheap, now we do it because it is still cheap and they are really effective.

I can’t imagine how it’ll play out, I think it depends on the competence of the leaders involved. So we’re a bit screwed in the UK.

A few thoughts on housing:

Try to transfer middle-class wealth from assets (housing) to consumption (e.g architects fees).

Massively relax planning permission to make it easier/cheaper to build – encouraging smaller builders/self-builds.

Increase the density of housing in towns/cities. So 5-10 storey large appartment blocks, instead of greenfield estates with a parking space.

It’s not popular or realistic, but surely Utopian!