Idk man US govt subsidy has done really well at creating abundance for the special guys who derive massive profit from the enormous public subsidies to military contractors, tech, pharmaceuticals, and major banks. It’s done pretty well in creating abundance for the state of Israel too (as a major launderer effectively for a substantial chunk of the subsidy to the aforementioned industries). Price controls in the form of imperial dominion over the resources, labor, and industrial development of the western hemisphere has been pretty effective as well.
I’d love to see an example of the interference free utopia that seems to exist in the minds of Hayek’s parish though. It seems silly to me to gesture at things without real recorded historical precedent — but maybe such a state has existed somewhere outside of myth (or the conflation and over-abstraction of macro and micro economics)?
You can only say "has done really well" if you completely ignore the economic impacts. Even setting aside the very real life & death of never-ending war, look at the numbers. Like other empires before us, the foolish accumulation of debt will wreck this empire.
I’m being facetious when I say well because it’s true it’s only good for a very small sliver — but yes I agree that funneling public wealth into private hands at the detriment of public good and violent extraction from the imperial hinterlands is bad and destabilizing.
What kind of economic arrangements and policies are you advocating for?
And again what’s up with the interference-free markets? Where are they? And if they aren’t real why are you using them as a guiding heuristic?
Comparing communism and modern socialism is kind of silly especially considering European socialism Which Arguably urbanism is a part of.
The government already competes in the market for instance the USPS competes with UPS Fedex and DHL.
The goals of corporations and the goals of the government Are significantly different
If there's a project any type project that would benefit society I don't see a reason why local state or federal government shouldn't be able to do it even if it competes with corporations
Europe with less GDP Better quality of life
Corporations take advantage of the government For their own Advantage even at the Detriment of society
One of the reasons why zoning laws are as bad as they are is because they benefit the automotive industry but also large developers who are the only ones who are able to get through the hurdles put in place which prevents smaller developers and individuals from competing effectively
Ideally it could be both the private sector and the government providing more housing especially since the calculations for the two are significantly different
It's very valuable for individuals to be able to make bets on their own houses Whether it's a business in the front or apartments it should be legal for individuals to make these bets which are currently not legal to do because of the zoning laws
Both the economy and towns / cities Are incredibly complex
We can't let companies be without restriction but also we can't have the government do ever thing
The Soviet Union did actually do a good job at providing housing
Yes, this feels like it's arguing against a caricature of socialism-specifically totalitarian, command-economy socialism-while completely ignoring democratic socialism, which is far more relevant in today's urban politics. It paints socialism as centralized control, price freezes, and state ownership, without acknowledging that many democratic socialists advocate mixed approaches-like balancing market forces with public investment or tenant protections.
I only included ideas that American politicians like Mamdani have openly supported. I have no interest in a caricature of him. The centralized control you're talking about -- those are things he's also talked about. Probably the most over-the-top was abolition of private property.
Oh, thanks for clarifying-I thought you were presenting Mamdani's views as representative of socialism broadly. That's what struck me, since it overlooks the more pragmatic, mixed-economy models that many democratic socialists support today.
You've failed to address the part where the socialist Mamdani advocates for making it easier to build housing. He's pro abundance policies.
Housing being inherently profitable is not ideal, government ownership does not necessitate that we stop building or that all housing be government run. Rent freezes are bad when there aren't incentives to build more housing. If you build more housing while also doing rent freezes, that would short circuit your argument.
Your inability to engage with what I said is sad. Mamdani wants to build housing, why is that an issue for you? Why does housing have to be privatized? Why can't the government just build housing?
If you want more housing built the neoliberal way, why don't you scream at the FED to lower the interest rate so builder loans are cheap?
I'm engaging with you, and I'm disagreeing with you. You and I have strongly opposing view of economics, which is the point of the original post. Economics is the key to success or failure when it comes to providing homes.
When governments are responsible for housing, all sorts of negative consequences come, some of which I mentioned in the post. Pricing is a huge one because state-owned housing would be disconnected from supply & demand.
I'm not expecting to convince anyone to change their economic worldview after reading what I wrote, but I hope people understand there's a massive fight coming within the YIMBY camp because socialists and capitalists can't both be correct about economics.
Why don't you address my point about Mamdani being pro Abundance. You keep dodging this, you aren't engaging with what I've said. Does cognitive dissonance hurt?
Are you bad at researching? It's not hard to find success stories of government building housing.
I have to conclude you just want to pick a fight with socialists and people like you are going to be the reason there is YIMBY infighting. Socialists want to build housing, why don't you?
I directly addressed the claim about Mamdani being pro abundance, in the article and in replies. If I claim to be pro walkability, but my policies lead to wider roads and more car traffic, then people will probably stop calling me pro walkability.
Abolishing private property and letting a government build housing will have a short-term effect of providing homes. In the long term, like I keep saying, it's not going to lead to abundance.
I would be interested in your views on the apparently wide-spread practice in Vienna in more public housing than we have here. The Soviet Union is hardly relevant as you say for today's market, but Vienna might be.
Isn't it a little convenient to separate economics from everything else, and only look through this one very minimal lens at how societies work? Especially, in an economic system that is geared toward (white) home ownership for the upper classes ( it's curious that Section 8 has a limit, but tax deductions for home ownership are unlimited).
It's a little like saying that healthcare is better when there's a free market. But when the state has a role in health care and a role in unemployment and in housing, all of a sudden the incentives is not just to make as much money as possible, the patient is no longer just a cash bag, a let's get them well enough to leave, but make sure they come back for more. All of a sudden, there's a greater responsibility for creating conditions for a healthy life, not just narrow economic prosperity for the few.
And it's similar with housing, minimum wages, having easy access to a healthy living (a food and drug administration that care more about the general population's health, than the pockets of food producers), afforable riliable public transport, easy options to bike (not just in rich communities), healthy grocery options, non-economically segregated schools, these are all aspects of housing. But economist always wants us to believe that it's this simple sum game of supply and demand, not admitting how the demand is so often rigged, underwritten by all these other factors. And then, when the economists are once again wrong about their models, there's no responsibility, no consequences. It's all just market market market...I guess they didn't get the memo in Vienna.
It's dangerous to think economics is "this one very minimal lens at how societies work." It plays a huge role. If a politician's policy ignores the market principles of supply & demand, it's doomed.
p.s. Healthcare *would* be better in a free market
Did you know, that the economists of Denmark back in the 50's showed through the mathematically correct calculations, that it would be a detriment to the Danish society if women were to enter the workforce? There was nothing wrong with their calculations, but the ideology that dictated the calculations were completely off.
And it's the same in the case you're bringing up here. I'm sure you can provide 'correct' calculation for why supply and demand is better than Mamdani's proposal, but you again forget to mention that it's fueled by ideology, not some objective truth. The humanistic issue with supply and demand is that it requires a large surplus population to function, which in the case of urban development means people priced out that have to leave or unhoused people. So yes, you can claim that supply and demand economics is the best way forward, and it is, but only if your end goal is more profit for less people. If the end goal is more and better housing for more people, then I think Mamdani's strategy will work better. His biggest issue is that he will have to fight the ideology of supply and demand, which has a lot of cash backing, and is willing to take a lost just to prove it's right, rather than change and help build a wider better city.
And so yes, in the same way as above a healthcare system run entirely on supply and demand will be better if your end goal is more profit, not if the end goal is a healthy population. The supply and demand needs a huge surplus, from which to pull, otherwise there can be no demand. It's quite simple, the goal, if it is a healthy population, would be for there to be zero demand, but supply demand can never get there.
Quick example, the supply demand economy has led to more research on concussion in NFL football players than in domestic violence victims. From an economical standpoint, this is the right decision, from a human standpoint, is it?
I grew up in Denmark under government healthcare, which was spectacular. I broke an arm skiing in Austria, got it fixed there and never saw a bill. Whereas during my 10 years living in NYC, the company I worked at paid $1,500 every month, essentially for me to get a yearly check up. This is $18,000 a year! That's a huge tax. Consider it this way, in Denmark, through the deduction of my taxes, I never came even close to paying $18,000 /year for my healthcare, which was better and less stressful than what I received in the US. That the company had to pay is actually just an invisible tax, I could have made $18,000 more every year, and paid a fraction of it in taxes, if the system was aimed at care not profit. And I guess this is true for most people, that's a lot of lost income that could be used to pay for supply demand housing.
Objective truth: When there isn't enough of some product to satisfy the number of people who want that product, the price goes up. When there's enough of a product, the price goes down.
That's supply and demand. It's about value. It holds true even if we're talking about bartering without using cash.
I don't disagree that supply and demand have some effect, but it's not an end-all be-all. If the demand for cars goes down, the price is likely not going up; it's more likely that the car companies lobby congress and mayors to close bike lanes and defund public transportation. Just saying it's supply and demand is like diagram architecture; it disregards the immense complexity we live within, and in this case, only looks at things from a profit standpoint. It's similar to how Bjarke Ingels released that Masterplanet video, it's a ridiculous diagram of the earth that doesn't hold true in any which way (but supplying the video can be used to create a demand for Bjarke Ingels...)
I guess it can be hard to believe, but it's how it happens. As a podcast (I will admit it was some NFL podcast, they are great entertainment and background noise) finished next up was the Nate Hagens (for context, he has a master's degree in finance with honors from the University of Chicago) "The Great Simplification." And the episode was, 'The 10 Core Myths Still Taught In Business School'. You can see why it caught my interest. I would actually really recommend that you listen to it, to get another much deeper argemented position than my common logical sense has given so far. It touches on the supply-demand issue in multiple ways, the starting myth, #10, being "what is the value of something" and the MBA answer it's worth what the market price is, which again is true in a narrow money is all we look at sense, but it will lead to the production of only luxury goods, so in our city, no apartments for the poor, the land is worth more as luxury condos.
But the #1 myth is Economic Theories Articulate Laws That Are Immutable and Timeless'As I'm not sure you will actually take the 45min to listen to this podcast, I've transcribed this point for you as I think it's really important, and aligns, (surprisingly well I will say given I hadn't heard this before) with what I've been arguing here, the start is basically what I said. So, I hope you'll read it, even better listen to the podcast, he speaks slow so you can easily do it at x1.5 or even x2. And I'd love to hear your reflections on it if you do.
Here's that #10 myth:
"In most economic classrooms and at MBA schools, models are presented with the authority of a natural law, like a natural science, chemistry, or biology or physics. Supply and demand, rational actors, efficient markets, growth curves. These aren’t just theories, they’re often treated like gravity. Unchanging, universal, objective. But here’s the thing; economic models are not describing physics. They’re describing human behavior embedded in the specific historic, cultural, and ecological context that is pretty much one time, very, very, special, unique period in human history, because those contexts are very rare and they change. Most of what we call modern economics emerged in the last 150 years, especially the last 50 - 70 years. An eye-blink in human history during [ … ] a period shaped by fossil fuels, colonization, rising populations, and expanding ecological impact. So much of our economic theory was built in this tiny, tiny sliver—a period of abundance and globalization and the Western industrialized consumption model. Cheap energy, accessible resources, expanding markets.
A one time bonanza, but not the best sample size to base economic laws for the future on. Because those conditions are not timeless. They are not repeatable, and they’re certainly not guaranteed going forward. So when economists speak of laws, the infinite growth, rational behavior, perfect substitution, as if they were universal truths, it misses the fact that they’re really more like assumptions baked into a model, often detached from ecological limits and lived human experience.
They are patterns, tendencies, and relationships worth studying, but they’re not laws in the way gravity is a law. They’re context dependent and subject to change, and they should change. The belief that economic models are fixed truths immune to feedback in the real world has led to profound blind spots, especially when these models collide with planetary boundaries, the well-being of people, the depletion of fossil resources and endowments that can’t be replaced once they’re used.
So the MBA map is not the economic territory for humans and the model built during this one time period of abundance when energy was cheap, ecosystems were stable and growth seem limitless are not going to hold up in a world facing ecological constraint, credit overshoot, social fragility and the long tail of natural capital in decline."
I'll be happy to keep chatting here, but you have to say something else than supply-demand is king. You have to explain your position against the arguments above. I'll also be happy to move this to email or even a phone call.
Idk man US govt subsidy has done really well at creating abundance for the special guys who derive massive profit from the enormous public subsidies to military contractors, tech, pharmaceuticals, and major banks. It’s done pretty well in creating abundance for the state of Israel too (as a major launderer effectively for a substantial chunk of the subsidy to the aforementioned industries). Price controls in the form of imperial dominion over the resources, labor, and industrial development of the western hemisphere has been pretty effective as well.
I’d love to see an example of the interference free utopia that seems to exist in the minds of Hayek’s parish though. It seems silly to me to gesture at things without real recorded historical precedent — but maybe such a state has existed somewhere outside of myth (or the conflation and over-abstraction of macro and micro economics)?
You can only say "has done really well" if you completely ignore the economic impacts. Even setting aside the very real life & death of never-ending war, look at the numbers. Like other empires before us, the foolish accumulation of debt will wreck this empire.
I don’t think it’s the debt that will do it.
I’m being facetious when I say well because it’s true it’s only good for a very small sliver — but yes I agree that funneling public wealth into private hands at the detriment of public good and violent extraction from the imperial hinterlands is bad and destabilizing.
What kind of economic arrangements and policies are you advocating for?
And again what’s up with the interference-free markets? Where are they? And if they aren’t real why are you using them as a guiding heuristic?
Comparing communism and modern socialism is kind of silly especially considering European socialism Which Arguably urbanism is a part of.
The government already competes in the market for instance the USPS competes with UPS Fedex and DHL.
The goals of corporations and the goals of the government Are significantly different
If there's a project any type project that would benefit society I don't see a reason why local state or federal government shouldn't be able to do it even if it competes with corporations
Europe with less GDP Better quality of life
Corporations take advantage of the government For their own Advantage even at the Detriment of society
One of the reasons why zoning laws are as bad as they are is because they benefit the automotive industry but also large developers who are the only ones who are able to get through the hurdles put in place which prevents smaller developers and individuals from competing effectively
Ideally it could be both the private sector and the government providing more housing especially since the calculations for the two are significantly different
It's very valuable for individuals to be able to make bets on their own houses Whether it's a business in the front or apartments it should be legal for individuals to make these bets which are currently not legal to do because of the zoning laws
Both the economy and towns / cities Are incredibly complex
We can't let companies be without restriction but also we can't have the government do ever thing
The Soviet Union did actually do a good job at providing housing
https://youtu.be/1eIxUuuJX7Y?si=
Yes, this feels like it's arguing against a caricature of socialism-specifically totalitarian, command-economy socialism-while completely ignoring democratic socialism, which is far more relevant in today's urban politics. It paints socialism as centralized control, price freezes, and state ownership, without acknowledging that many democratic socialists advocate mixed approaches-like balancing market forces with public investment or tenant protections.
I only included ideas that American politicians like Mamdani have openly supported. I have no interest in a caricature of him. The centralized control you're talking about -- those are things he's also talked about. Probably the most over-the-top was abolition of private property.
Oh, thanks for clarifying-I thought you were presenting Mamdani's views as representative of socialism broadly. That's what struck me, since it overlooks the more pragmatic, mixed-economy models that many democratic socialists support today.
You've failed to address the part where the socialist Mamdani advocates for making it easier to build housing. He's pro abundance policies.
Housing being inherently profitable is not ideal, government ownership does not necessitate that we stop building or that all housing be government run. Rent freezes are bad when there aren't incentives to build more housing. If you build more housing while also doing rent freezes, that would short circuit your argument.
Abolishing private property is not going to bring abundant housing.
Freezing rents is not going to bring abundant housing.
Guaranteeing homes subsidized by taxpayers will not bring abundant housing.
Like I said, I believe that Mamdani truly wants people to have a place to live. But socialist economics is not the way.
Your inability to engage with what I said is sad. Mamdani wants to build housing, why is that an issue for you? Why does housing have to be privatized? Why can't the government just build housing?
If you want more housing built the neoliberal way, why don't you scream at the FED to lower the interest rate so builder loans are cheap?
I'm engaging with you, and I'm disagreeing with you. You and I have strongly opposing view of economics, which is the point of the original post. Economics is the key to success or failure when it comes to providing homes.
When governments are responsible for housing, all sorts of negative consequences come, some of which I mentioned in the post. Pricing is a huge one because state-owned housing would be disconnected from supply & demand.
I'm not expecting to convince anyone to change their economic worldview after reading what I wrote, but I hope people understand there's a massive fight coming within the YIMBY camp because socialists and capitalists can't both be correct about economics.
Why don't you address my point about Mamdani being pro Abundance. You keep dodging this, you aren't engaging with what I've said. Does cognitive dissonance hurt?
Are you bad at researching? It's not hard to find success stories of government building housing.
https://www.comerica.com/insights/commercial-banking/specialized-industries/affortable-housing-projects.html
The US government has built housing before, and it's been successfully.
https://theconversation.com/believe-it-or-not-there-was-a-time-when-the-us-government-built-beautiful-homes-for-working-class-americans-to-deal-with-a-housing-shortage-253512
I have to conclude you just want to pick a fight with socialists and people like you are going to be the reason there is YIMBY infighting. Socialists want to build housing, why don't you?
I directly addressed the claim about Mamdani being pro abundance, in the article and in replies. If I claim to be pro walkability, but my policies lead to wider roads and more car traffic, then people will probably stop calling me pro walkability.
Abolishing private property and letting a government build housing will have a short-term effect of providing homes. In the long term, like I keep saying, it's not going to lead to abundance.
I would be interested in your views on the apparently wide-spread practice in Vienna in more public housing than we have here. The Soviet Union is hardly relevant as you say for today's market, but Vienna might be.
Isn't it a little convenient to separate economics from everything else, and only look through this one very minimal lens at how societies work? Especially, in an economic system that is geared toward (white) home ownership for the upper classes ( it's curious that Section 8 has a limit, but tax deductions for home ownership are unlimited).
It's a little like saying that healthcare is better when there's a free market. But when the state has a role in health care and a role in unemployment and in housing, all of a sudden the incentives is not just to make as much money as possible, the patient is no longer just a cash bag, a let's get them well enough to leave, but make sure they come back for more. All of a sudden, there's a greater responsibility for creating conditions for a healthy life, not just narrow economic prosperity for the few.
And it's similar with housing, minimum wages, having easy access to a healthy living (a food and drug administration that care more about the general population's health, than the pockets of food producers), afforable riliable public transport, easy options to bike (not just in rich communities), healthy grocery options, non-economically segregated schools, these are all aspects of housing. But economist always wants us to believe that it's this simple sum game of supply and demand, not admitting how the demand is so often rigged, underwritten by all these other factors. And then, when the economists are once again wrong about their models, there's no responsibility, no consequences. It's all just market market market...I guess they didn't get the memo in Vienna.
It's dangerous to think economics is "this one very minimal lens at how societies work." It plays a huge role. If a politician's policy ignores the market principles of supply & demand, it's doomed.
p.s. Healthcare *would* be better in a free market
Did you know, that the economists of Denmark back in the 50's showed through the mathematically correct calculations, that it would be a detriment to the Danish society if women were to enter the workforce? There was nothing wrong with their calculations, but the ideology that dictated the calculations were completely off.
And it's the same in the case you're bringing up here. I'm sure you can provide 'correct' calculation for why supply and demand is better than Mamdani's proposal, but you again forget to mention that it's fueled by ideology, not some objective truth. The humanistic issue with supply and demand is that it requires a large surplus population to function, which in the case of urban development means people priced out that have to leave or unhoused people. So yes, you can claim that supply and demand economics is the best way forward, and it is, but only if your end goal is more profit for less people. If the end goal is more and better housing for more people, then I think Mamdani's strategy will work better. His biggest issue is that he will have to fight the ideology of supply and demand, which has a lot of cash backing, and is willing to take a lost just to prove it's right, rather than change and help build a wider better city.
And so yes, in the same way as above a healthcare system run entirely on supply and demand will be better if your end goal is more profit, not if the end goal is a healthy population. The supply and demand needs a huge surplus, from which to pull, otherwise there can be no demand. It's quite simple, the goal, if it is a healthy population, would be for there to be zero demand, but supply demand can never get there.
Quick example, the supply demand economy has led to more research on concussion in NFL football players than in domestic violence victims. From an economical standpoint, this is the right decision, from a human standpoint, is it?
I grew up in Denmark under government healthcare, which was spectacular. I broke an arm skiing in Austria, got it fixed there and never saw a bill. Whereas during my 10 years living in NYC, the company I worked at paid $1,500 every month, essentially for me to get a yearly check up. This is $18,000 a year! That's a huge tax. Consider it this way, in Denmark, through the deduction of my taxes, I never came even close to paying $18,000 /year for my healthcare, which was better and less stressful than what I received in the US. That the company had to pay is actually just an invisible tax, I could have made $18,000 more every year, and paid a fraction of it in taxes, if the system was aimed at care not profit. And I guess this is true for most people, that's a lot of lost income that could be used to pay for supply demand housing.
Objective truth: When there isn't enough of some product to satisfy the number of people who want that product, the price goes up. When there's enough of a product, the price goes down.
That's supply and demand. It's about value. It holds true even if we're talking about bartering without using cash.
I don't disagree that supply and demand have some effect, but it's not an end-all be-all. If the demand for cars goes down, the price is likely not going up; it's more likely that the car companies lobby congress and mayors to close bike lanes and defund public transportation. Just saying it's supply and demand is like diagram architecture; it disregards the immense complexity we live within, and in this case, only looks at things from a profit standpoint. It's similar to how Bjarke Ingels released that Masterplanet video, it's a ridiculous diagram of the earth that doesn't hold true in any which way (but supplying the video can be used to create a demand for Bjarke Ingels...)
I guess it can be hard to believe, but it's how it happens. As a podcast (I will admit it was some NFL podcast, they are great entertainment and background noise) finished next up was the Nate Hagens (for context, he has a master's degree in finance with honors from the University of Chicago) "The Great Simplification." And the episode was, 'The 10 Core Myths Still Taught In Business School'. You can see why it caught my interest. I would actually really recommend that you listen to it, to get another much deeper argemented position than my common logical sense has given so far. It touches on the supply-demand issue in multiple ways, the starting myth, #10, being "what is the value of something" and the MBA answer it's worth what the market price is, which again is true in a narrow money is all we look at sense, but it will lead to the production of only luxury goods, so in our city, no apartments for the poor, the land is worth more as luxury condos.
But the #1 myth is Economic Theories Articulate Laws That Are Immutable and Timeless'As I'm not sure you will actually take the 45min to listen to this podcast, I've transcribed this point for you as I think it's really important, and aligns, (surprisingly well I will say given I hadn't heard this before) with what I've been arguing here, the start is basically what I said. So, I hope you'll read it, even better listen to the podcast, he speaks slow so you can easily do it at x1.5 or even x2. And I'd love to hear your reflections on it if you do.
Here's that #10 myth:
"In most economic classrooms and at MBA schools, models are presented with the authority of a natural law, like a natural science, chemistry, or biology or physics. Supply and demand, rational actors, efficient markets, growth curves. These aren’t just theories, they’re often treated like gravity. Unchanging, universal, objective. But here’s the thing; economic models are not describing physics. They’re describing human behavior embedded in the specific historic, cultural, and ecological context that is pretty much one time, very, very, special, unique period in human history, because those contexts are very rare and they change. Most of what we call modern economics emerged in the last 150 years, especially the last 50 - 70 years. An eye-blink in human history during [ … ] a period shaped by fossil fuels, colonization, rising populations, and expanding ecological impact. So much of our economic theory was built in this tiny, tiny sliver—a period of abundance and globalization and the Western industrialized consumption model. Cheap energy, accessible resources, expanding markets.
A one time bonanza, but not the best sample size to base economic laws for the future on. Because those conditions are not timeless. They are not repeatable, and they’re certainly not guaranteed going forward. So when economists speak of laws, the infinite growth, rational behavior, perfect substitution, as if they were universal truths, it misses the fact that they’re really more like assumptions baked into a model, often detached from ecological limits and lived human experience.
They are patterns, tendencies, and relationships worth studying, but they’re not laws in the way gravity is a law. They’re context dependent and subject to change, and they should change. The belief that economic models are fixed truths immune to feedback in the real world has led to profound blind spots, especially when these models collide with planetary boundaries, the well-being of people, the depletion of fossil resources and endowments that can’t be replaced once they’re used.
So the MBA map is not the economic territory for humans and the model built during this one time period of abundance when energy was cheap, ecosystems were stable and growth seem limitless are not going to hold up in a world facing ecological constraint, credit overshoot, social fragility and the long tail of natural capital in decline."
I'll be happy to keep chatting here, but you have to say something else than supply-demand is king. You have to explain your position against the arguments above. I'll also be happy to move this to email or even a phone call.