[uyzstvqs]

The fact that there are a not insignificant number of people comparing this game to the real world suggests that basic economic education is severely lacking.

There's actually this great book called Basic Economics, for those interested.

[mschuster91]

> The fact that there are a not insignificant number of people comparing this game to the real world suggests that basic economic education is severely lacking.

Landlords aren't needed for a society to work. A lot of Eastern European countries have home-ownership rates way beyond 90% [1] - that allows the economies of these countries to be able to undercut Western European countries on wages despite everyday cost of life (e.g. electricity, food, gas) being similar to Western Europe (or, like in Croatia, often enough even more expensive than that!), as there are almost no landlords extracting value off of society and into the hands of the very few very rich.

The only place where landlords actually fill a valid gap are to serve those who have to move to a new place or who are in the country only for short/medium term.

It's not surprising that the countries with high homeownership rates are formerly Communist or (like the Nordics) strongly Social Democrat in history. A population is way happier when they do not have to fear eviction every day in life.

[1] https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/155734/umfrag...

[robertlagrant]

The reason for this could be a lack of people coming into the country that need a home. If the number of people entering a country is minimal, the demand won't go up, and almost everyone can afford a home. If there are far more people entering then homes get chopped up into apartments and each rented out for the same price the whole house would've been rented for a few years ago. Landlords in this situation are just adjusting the supply to meet the demand, and to be honest doing a better job than, say, the UK government, who just pay taxpayer money to hotels and stick people in them.

[pacifika]

I’d have thought the pressure of immigration on housing needs is lower than the pressure of centralized wealth creation? I have no sources just an intuition. London and Amsterdam are a good example of this

[aden1ne]

Huh? I'd have said Amsterdam is actually a real good example of immigration driving up rents. When covid happened, Amsterdam rates actually went down, whereas they kept going up in the rest of the nation. Why: the expats stopped coming.

[robertlagrant]

What is centralised wealth creation?

[YmiYugy]

Even large cities in Eastern Europe have shrinking or stagnant populations. I hear housing in West Virginia is pretty affordable as well.

[gieksosz]

You didn't mention it is a Thomas Sowell book. So not exactly a mainstream book they use commonly at Uni, despite its name.