[TomMarius]

How exactly should we vote supply and demand out of existence? You propose a left-ish solution but the same left-ish people that would enact it also support housing regulation, and due to supply and demand, your goal simply can't be met. This is not a systemic issue in most places where the program exists, it's an issue of current regulation (and the people that created it).

[TulliusCicero]

> How exactly should we vote supply and demand out of existence?

You can't, but there are things that can be done to compensate or mitigate:

- Anti-union regulations like "right to work" laws are an anti-market intrusion that weakens the power of labor. Vote against them.

- Support works councils (they've worked well in Germany) for more democratic governance, which right now I believe are illegal in the US (read this in a Bloomberg article earlier, though haven't verified).

- Support things that make bad jobs less bad. For example, there are benefits offered by 'better' companies, like good health insurance or paid parental leave, that could be provided by the state or mandated by the state.

- Support land use and transportation changes that would allow more people to participate in the economies of 'superstar' cities without ruinous housing costs.

Note that two of these things are even market-oriented, not all the positive changes have to be about more/bigger government.

[vonmoltke]

> - Anti-union regulations like "right to work" laws are an anti-market intrusion that weakens the power of labor. Vote against them.

How is forcing me to join a particular union pro-market?

Also, how am I supposed to vote on this or any of the other things you mentioned? I get one vote per legislative body every 2 || 6 years and that one vote has to cover dozens of issues like this that come up in the interim.

[threatofrain]

I always though the right way to do things in a democracy is to talk to your neighbors and reach consensus (campaigning). The purpose of a democracy isn’t so individuals can say “I voted”; voting is merely democracy’s technique for communal action. One could even convince enough people to buy an ad.

It should be obvious given that a person has one vote.

[TulliusCicero]

> How is forcing me to join a particular union pro-market?

A contract stipulating joining a union for a job is no more anti-market than a contract specifying work hours or clothing requirements or how much vacation you get. If that's how the business has decided to run, the free market perspective is that they should be allowed to. It's market forces that can compel a company to agree to such a setup, after all.

However, a regulation saying that this type of contractual obligations is illegal is very obviously an intrusion on the market. Not that I think all intrusions are bad, but I don't see a compelling reason to support this one, given that corporations already tend to have the advantage over workers and this reduces workers' collective leverage.

Agreed that it's hard to vote narrowly on this topic. But no different from any other political subject, really.

[tathougies]

Certainly businesses today are free to mandate union involvement, even in right to work states. However, it is actually anti free market to stipulate thar businesses must do this. There's no way to spin that as anything other than authoritarian

[TulliusCicero]

> Certainly businesses today are free to mandate union involvement, even in right to work states.

But businesses cannot mandate union membership for employees in right to work states. That's what "right to work" means.

> However, it is actually anti free market to stipulate thar businesses must do this.

Not sure what 'this' you're referring to here, could you clarify please?

[tathougies]

> But businesses cannot mandate union membership for employees in right to work states. That's what "right to work" means.

Yes they can.. That is what 'right to work' means. If a company mandates union membership and you do not want to join the union, or decide to leave the union, a company in a right to work state will fire you. This is like a union in a non-right-to-work state, where, if there is a union, and you refuse to join it, you can no longer work at the company. This is how it works for teachers unions too (in California at least) -- if you leave or refuse to pay dues, you are automatically let go.

> Not sure what 'this' you're referring to here, could you clarify please?

If you tell all businesses in your state that you must have a union (or accept a union if your employees vote for one), then that is mandating that the company mandate union membership from their employees by a mechanism other than the company's directors' own will. This is an infringement on their liberty (justified or not).

[nikomen]

I assume this would mean trying to vote for politicians that would remove the artificial supply and demand in somewhere like San Francisco where, if stories are correct, the local population doesn't allow for dense development. I'm not sure what you do in locales like New York where development is already dense in many areas.

[TulliusCicero]

NYC has some similar problems, albeit not as severe. IIRC much of the existing housing in NYC is 'illegal' in the sense that current zoning would prevent it from being built today due to density restrictions.

For a counter example, you can look at Tokyo as a place that's more of a free for all, and indeed while it's still fairly expensive, it's much less so than the bay area or NYC.

[jtuente]

Rent alone accounts for the majority of the difference in CoL, but that may also depend on your expectations for the living space.

https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...

[TulliusCicero]

Even if you compared studios in NYC to 1br's in Tokyo, Tokyo would still have a huge rent price advantage.