They’re both. You can’t detach them from the market because they are products of the market. In order for a house to be built you need landscapers to clear out the plot, a construction crew to build up the house and foundation, electricians to wire up the house, plumbers to hookup the pipes, roofers to put on the shingles, architects to design the whole thing, and you need to buy the material… which require loggers, welders, miners, factory workers, glaziers, and the list goes on and on. Even then, you still need appliances like stoves, refrigerators, microwaves, etc and each of those has it’s own supply chain and ecosystem. All of these people are trading their labor for money, they’re not going to work for free. Therefore, in order to have a house, you have to pay all these people in the chain to actually get the final product which you can either sell or enjoy. A house is commodity made of commodities. I’m not exactly sure what you’re expecting here, do you think the government is going to build houses with slave labor? Do you think we’re going to water the ground and get houses to grow? Do you expect us to follow in steps of a failed ideology like Marxism and have the government try to control the entire economy? No, these are all dumb. We can acknowledge that these are necessities and should be made accessible, safe, and affordable but also acknowledge that they’re products of the market and therefore we have to work with it, not against it.
What a load of shit.
This completely ignores how the housing market has become a farce, based more on speculation than reality. My prime minister has admitted that he does not want housing prices to go down because houses have become a retirement plan for an entire generation. The government literally admits that it wants housing to be unaffordable, how does that have anything to do with creating a functioning market? The price of home ownership is completely detached from the reality of building homes, arguing housing is expensive because it’s expensive to build is absolute horse shit.
Not to mention how many “commodities” have been socialized successfully. In order to get medical care you need to build a hospital, pay the doctors, buy the supplies, the list goes on and on. Yet my country has successfully socialized healthcare for the benefit of everyone who lives here. My utilities are socialized even though all the exact same concepts apply to them as well.
Your argument is completely hollow. Housing can and has been socialized, but doing so is against the interest of a wealthy land owners. Hmm I wonder if those wealthy land owners have any sway on government policy.
The price of home ownership is completely detached from the reality of building homes, arguing housing is expensive because it’s expensive to build is absolute horse shit.
I never said the housing market doesn’t have any problems, it clearly does. I’m merely pointing out the basic reality that houses and other necessities are products of the markets. You can’t “detach” them from the market, I doubt the guy who said this even knows what this means. Adding regulations, changing incentives, changing the method of payment is very different from “detaching”.
In order to get medical care you need to build a hospital, pay the doctors, buy the supplies, the list goes on and on. Yet my country has successfully socialized healthcare for the benefit of everyone who lives here. My utilities are socialized even though all the exact same concepts apply to them as well.
You do understand that socialized healthcare system still use the market, right? I don’t think you understand what socialized healthcare or anything really means. Your country still pays companies to build the hospitals, companies to maintain them, staff to run them, doctors to take care of the patients, companies to get medical equipment, companies to get medicine, and so on. These are all products of the market. The only thing that socialized healthcare does is transfer the costs from investors and consumers to the taxpayers… that is all. Healthcare services in a socialized system aren’t detached from the market, they just have a different scheme of paying for it all.
Your argument is completely hollow. Housing can and has been socialized, but doing so is against the interest of a wealthy land owners. Hmm I wonder if those wealthy land owners have any sway on government policy.
Your ignorance on how economies actually run doesn’t take away from the validity of my statements.
