[nouveaux]

This is a good question. Where do we draw the line at human rights? Should land ownership be a protected right? It would cost a lot less if the government just took the land instead of paying fair market value.

It would also cost a lot less if we forced all criminals to work for free (though right now, they practically work for free). The problem is that we would quickly run out of criminals since there are so many projects that needs work. We could just randomly enslave people to do work for free.

Enslaving citizens wouldn't be fair or popular with the citizens of our country. Another option is to use our military might to subjugate other countries and bring them over to work, say to work on our farms. That would allow for very high gdp growth.

So where do we draw the line and who gets to draw that line?

[BlargMcLarg]

We draw the line where there's an obvious problem. For every reductio ad absurdum looking at slavery and trying to put down another country's citizens at the benefit of our own, there is a counterexample looking at how ridiculous it is we have ultra-rich deciding their little game of looking at numbers going up and people living in McMansions just to show off being more important than a giant middle class unable to afford housing where their grandfathers and grandmothers could living a lower class lifestyle.

Surely somewhere we can accept that a bunch of wealthy playing the investment game on very limited resources instead of the realm of producing solutions or improvements isn't the way to further society as a whole. We don't have to put down those already in the ditches further, we got a swat of people above to look at.

[nouveaux]

I think we both agree that we shouldn't be protecting the wealthy. I just think we should do it another way. IMO, high housing prices exist because of the lack of supply. I think it's possible for the government to increase housing stock and have reasonable property rights.

[amrocha]

"Property rights" are not human rights, stop conflating the 2.

And the absurd examples you tried to come up with are literally things the US is doing today, you're just being sinophobic.

[xvector]

There is a balance between letting a single individual stall progress for all of society, and respecting human rights. A single individual certainly should not be able to block the construction of a public transit system that will bring jobs and improve the livelihood of millions. At the same time, the government can provide reasonable alternative accommodations or pay market value (not decided by the individual in question.)

Eliminating NIMBYism and individuals' selfish obstinacy does not need to lead to a global hegemony enslaving billions.

[imtringued]

Maybe you should be a sane human being and tax the privileges that land ownership provides.

[rcpt]

Bringing up Henry George is easy mode in these threads