| The housing situation in London may be special, and I would bet you can find socialist laws behind it that make renting out properties nonviable (like rent controls and making it impossible to get rid of bad tenants). Here in Berlin there is a similar discussion, some people claim empty houses are the cause of the crisis, others say it is a myth. Since I had that debate recently I looked up the articles who found no such surplus, but the "believers" just want to believe, because it is such a handy explanation. I don't think number of houses is the problem, either. People need houses in certain places. That's why homeless hang out in San Francisco where a flat costs 1 million dollars, while a couple of hundred of miles away it would presumably be much, much cheaper. As for your production, it still all costs energy, and getting energy also costs labor (and even wars, remember the wars about oil). Abandoned factories simply have turned out to be not economically viable. If you think you can do better, why don't you pool your money with some friends, buy such a factory and start it up again? You merely display the typical arrogance of socialist who always believe they could run everything better with a "planning economy". And when they finally get to try it out in the real world, they get a major painful reality check. Take your factories: since they were not economically viable, it would be wasteful and a net loss for society and the economy to start them up again. You are partially right about increased productivity, and it actually has improved the lives of many people. I personally am very glad that I don't have to spend my waking hours doing hard labor on a field just so that I can harvest some potatoes. Most people in the west have enough to eat, and clothes they can wear, many even have a nice smartphone on top. Some resources are still limited, though, such as nice places to live in. And the world population has also grown by a couple of billion people compared to 100 years ago. Your job that fed a family at the beginning of the 20th century still feeds a family today, only in China. |
You post is narrow minded and presumptious - I am not socialist, we don't have rent controls in London, and there are economic terms other than 'socialist' and 'capitalist'. Try 'Shumpeterian'
But if you want to go on believing that the only choices are socialism or economic collapse every 8 years, go on.