The Supreme Court on Tuesday turned down a major property-rights challenge to rent control laws in New York City and elsewhere that give tenants a right to stay for many years in an apartment with a below-market cost.
A group of New York landlords had sued, contending the combination of rent regulation and long-term occupancy violated the Constitution’s ban on the taking of private property for public use.
The justices had considered the appeal since late September. Only Justice Clarence Thomas issued a partial dissent.
The free market cannot provide affordable housing for everything, including essential service workers
I thought pure capitalism meant that a removal of controls and regulations would lead to natural consequences (like essential services workers being priced out) which would eventually lead to a lack of essential workers, which would eventually lead to the creation of affordable accommodation in the city by some enterprising business looking to capitalise on that opportunity. The free market would eventually take care of the problem. It might be disruptive in the short term, but ultimately that problem would be self resolved by the market. Bringing in regulations and controls starts to smell like socialism?!
For clarity, I believe in socialism, and live in Australia, arguably one of the more successful social democracies. I’m trying to highlight how capitalism has some massive gaps when it comes to implementation.
Interestingly, in Australia we have no rental controls, and the market just works. Prices rise and fall based on the demands of the market. At times, renting in Australia becomes unaffordable for many, and it’s all over the news, and people try to address the issue. But I don’t know that I’ve ever heard rental price controls being offered as a solution. The more common proposed solutions are to: build more affordable houses in newly created suburbs further from the city, increase public transport options to the city making outlying suburbs more viable, all of which provide downward pressure on the rental prices in the popular city districts. As construction booms, the rental market softens.
In a world with infinite resources maybe. But consider places like NYC where there is no more land to build on and agencies with money gobble up whatever land/buildings become available before an enterprising agency can come in to shake up the market and you’ll start to realize one of the major failings of capitalism.
Capitalism always favors the rich at the expense of the poor. The only way that the poor can prosper is at the good will of the rich, which is something that exists in such small quantities that it may as well not exist at all.
For clarity, I believe in socialism, and live in Australia, arguably one of the more successful social democracies. I’m trying to highlight how capitalism has some massive gaps when it comes to implementation.
Interestingly, in Australia we have no rental controls, and the market just works. Prices rise and fall based on the demands of the market. At times, renting in Australia becomes unaffordable for many, and it’s all over the news, and people try to address the issue. But I don’t know that I’ve ever heard rental price controls being offered as a solution. The more common proposed solutions are to: build more affordable houses in newly created suburbs further from the city, increase public transport options to the city making outlying suburbs more viable, all of which provide downward pressure on the rental prices in the popular city districts. As construction booms, the rental market softens.
(I copy/pasted this comment from its original location as the person I replied to deleted their comment)
But consider places like NYC where there is no more land to build on…
Then NYC needs to manage itself better by purchasing property and knocking shit down to build larger buildings with more tenements in the same footprint. That “flavorful” 2 story with 12 apartments in Manhattan? Bulldoze that clunker and build a new 20 story with 120 apartments in it!
Then you keep doing it. NYC buys property, knocks down whatever tiny thing is there and rebuilds it to 10 or 20 times the previous capacity. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.
All that’s happening with their current scheme is that the rent controlled apartments are being subsidized by everyone who lives in the market rate apartments so that they don’t damage the “character” of certain areas. The only winners are the people in the relatively few available rent controlled apartments and they’re only winning because they’re literally taking money from other people.
It’s not sustainable.
it might be disruotive in the short term
This handwave sentence is always what libertarians use to hide the utter destruction of a working society.
“Yes, millions of people in a city suddenly being homeless, leading to crime/violence/mass death/the breakdown of all services and commerce would be disrupted, but at some point after tens of thousand die it would work itself out because…”
Plenty of “libertarian paradises” out there man, only some of them over run by bears. Hows that track record of unfettered capitalism going?
That’s exactly what I’m trying to highlight. It might be good for the US to provide a list of things that are ok to regulate for the good of society, and things that are not ok to regulate for the good of capitalism.
Should healthcare be regulated? Should education be regulated? Should housing and rental prices be regulated? Food prices? What about essential services like power, internet, waste… should all that be regulated? You are living in a social democracy and pretending it’s a pure capitalist system.
