As long as housing is an investment, there has to be a housing crisis.

100% Agree

I’m not sure how banning landlords works though. Like everybody has to own their own house? What about apartment buildings or people living somewhere for the short-term? Or are you think like where the government is the landlord for everybody - sort of like Vienna?

When you say “doing the former” what specifically do mean?

Empirically, building more housing does lower the cost of rent. See Austin for an example. But yeah there is more that could be done for sure.

There is a solution for landlords that we’ve known about for a long time.

And its doesn’t involve the a massive, powerful state controlling where people can live.

Its a 100% tax on the value of land. It would stop the landowning class from unfairly stealing huge amounts of money from the poor in the form of rent. It could fund the government (allowing us to decrease taxes that hurt labor, like an income tax), or be redistributed as UBI.

Seriously, if you are at all interested in potential solutions to the housing crises and wealth inequality, please, please, google Land Value Tax and Georgism.

I think Trump has some of the fascist traits Eco points out, like xenophobia and appealing to a frustrated middle class. But he is thoroughly lacking in other fascist traits, like (1) the syncretic neo-pagan mysticism and (2) the idea that the state should always be at war, that the state should encourage all citizens to die a hero’s death.

So I’d call him authoritarian, christian nationalist, and stupid. But not fascist.

Yeah good point

Look, conservatives suck but theyre not fascists. Calling everybody to the right of you fascist waters down the meaning of the word.

Heres a good take by Umberto Eco on what makes fascism distinct from other political movements: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/umberto-eco-ur-fascism

How has no comment in this thread yet mentioned Georgism or Land Value Tax? That is the solution to Landlordism

Google georgism

capitalism is celebrating

capitalism is not a person

Anybody else feel like the tone of his videos has changed? I used to recommend NJB videos to family and friends, but now I feel like his videos would alienate them more than win them over.