This proposal is a slippery slope to economic disaster. First, restricting ownership rights—foreign or domestic—distorts the market, disincentivizes investment, and ultimately harms those it claims to help by reducing the supply of housing. Second, treating homes purely as shelter ignores the reality that property is also an investment and a key component of individual wealth and economic freedom. Imposing heavy taxes on those owning more than one home would not only penalize success but also discourage rental market contributions, exacerbating the housing shortage. The real solution lies in encouraging development and reducing bureaucratic barriers to increase housing supply, not in draconian measures that trample on property rights and stifle economic growth. Let’s not replace a market-driven approach with a command economy that history has repeatedly shown to fail.
Asserting that housing—or any basic necessity—shouldn’t be an investment is a dangerously naive stance that flies in the face of economic reality and human history. Consider food, water, healthcare—all necessities, yet all benefit from private investment and innovation. The collectivist dream to strip away the investment aspect of housing is a recipe for disaster, leading to shortages, degradation, and inefficiency. Your stance isn’t just misguided; it’s empirically proven to fail, fostering misery under the guise of equality. Housing, like any resource, flourishes under conditions of freedom, not under the heavy hand of state control. To suggest otherwise is to ignore the lessons of history and to jeopardize the very foundations of prosperity and freedom.
> Consider food, water, healthcare—all necessities, yet all benefit from private investment and innovation.
I live beside the river Thames, which private "investment" has transformed into a sewer. My access to food has shrunk; I used to have access to butchers, greengrocers and so on. Now all my food comes from supermarkets. The health system I depend on has been gradually privatized, and it is now at breaking point.
> the lessons of history
History is squishy stuff; we mould it to support the conclusions we want to draw.
[Edit] I'm interested that you didn't challenge my equating of investment with speculation, because I didn't mention investment. Obviously, without capital investment, you don't get capital assets like houses. But my neighbourhood is blighted by absentee landlords; one neighbour is an AirBnB, the other has been empty for 5 years. Both are owned by absentee landlords, one living 2,000Km away. That's not investment; that's speculation.
Blaming private investment for pollution and housing issues ignores the core role of government in regulating externalities and protecting property rights. The Thames’ state isn’t due to market failure but government inaction, a prime example of state failure. Moreover, the economic decline witnessed in the UK isn’t caused by capitalism but by anti-market policies stifling competitiveness. The real issue is the collectivist delusion that more state control is the solution, ignoring that such approaches have consistently led to further decline. Misplacing blame on capitalism and pining for socialism only exacerbates the problems, diverting us from the proven path to prosperity: free markets and effective, limited government intervention.
Lamenting the rise of supermarkets as a death knell for local butchers and greengrocers is a misplaced nostalgia that ignores consumer choice and market efficiency. Supermarkets thrive because they offer what consumers demand: variety, convenience, and affordability. To decry this as a market failure is to advocate for a return to less efficient, more costly ways of living, under the guise of preserving tradition. It’s an affront to consumer sovereignty and a free market that naturally evolves to meet changing societal needs. Yearning for a past that restricts choice and elevates prices is a backward step, not progress.
Criticizing absentee landlords as mere speculators ignores the benefits they bring: paying property taxes and injecting capital into the economy. This isn’t about speculation; it’s about fulfilling market demand and facilitating economic activity. The real issue lies in state-imposed barriers that prevent adequate housing supply, not in the actions of individual investors. Blaming investors for taking advantage of market opportunities is misguided and diverts attention from necessary reforms to increase housing availability and affordability.
The collectivist dismissal of history as "squishy" is a deliberate evasion of undeniable truths. History is replete with the failures of socialism and the triumphs of capitalism. To mold it to fit a narrative that justifies state control and collectivism is intellectually dishonest and dangerously naive. The empirical evidence is clear: wherever socialism has been tried, it has led to economic stagnation, misery, and the erosion of freedoms. Capitalism has lifted billions out of poverty and spurred innovation and prosperity unmatched by any collectivist scheme. Ignoring these facts is not just an error in judgment; it's a willful blindness to the lessons that history has painstakingly taught us about the superiority of market freedom over state control.
Whenever the cry of "market failure" echoes, a closer inspection often reveals the true culprit: state failure. "If someone considers that there is a market failure, I would suggest that they check to see if there is state intervention involved. And if they find that that’s not the case, I would suggest that they check again, because obviously there’s a mistake." This wisdom holds true across the spectrum of economic grievances. Time and again, what is hastily labeled as a failure of capitalism turns out to be the unintended consequences of excessive regulation, misguided policies, or government overreach. The path to prosperity is not paved by increasing state control but by unleashing the creative and productive powers of the free market.
I think in an ideal world you’re right. Ideally if housing costs were too expensive I would just move somewhere else. However we live in a world where there are borders and immigration policies and violence and relationships and jobs and climates that make moving around hard. Housing is a hard problem because there are limited resources for where people want to/can live. It’s a type of natural monopoly. I’m pretty sure history has abundant examples of what happens when you allow natural monopolies to run unchecked. Personally I’d rather have a mismanaged democratic government in charge of the monopoly than any private entity.
> The Thames’ state isn’t due to market failure but government inaction
> The real issue is the collectivist delusion that more state control is the solution
My head hurts.
> The collectivist dismissal of history as "squishy"
Firstly, I am not a collectivist. Secondly, I don't dismiss history; I think it's very important and illuminating. Thirdly, Karl Marx, the arch-collectivist, hardly dismissed history; his entire theory was based on historical analysis. History is not a list of facts; what real historians do is largely interpretation. History is almost completely unlike maths. Expressions like "history tells us that ..." are rather stultifying; history tends to tell us what we want to hear.
Your comment seems to be a catalogue of free-marketeer articles of faith, expressed as bald assertions, as if only a fool could fail to see their obvious truth. Well, we've had free-marketeers in charge here for 15 years now; everyone knows that things have got worse.
Ah yes, who would want to trade the flourishing real estate utopia of, say, San Francisco for the collectivist hellscapes of New York (some rent stabilization and public housing), Vienna (>50% public housing, consistently scores top in overall quality of life globally), or Singapore (>70% public housing)?
Free markets are great, until they start incentivizing weird behaviors (NIMBYism, bubbles) instead of investments (construction, renovations) and efficient allocation.
Successful cities have walked the balance successfully and stepped in (only) when necessary.
This argument mistakenly credits collectivist policies for successes but ignoring the profound negative impacts of state overreach in places like San Francisco. This isn’t about choosing between so-called utopias and hellscapes but recognizing the failure of excessive regulation that stifles supply and inflates costs. Vienna and Singapore are outliers that succeed due to unique governance, cultural attitudes towards public housing, and centralized planning that meticulously balances supply and demand—conditions that are not easily replicated elsewhere. The real issue is state intervention distorting market incentives, leading to inefficiencies like NIMBYism and housing bubbles. A truly efficient housing market thrives under free market principles, minimally but effectively regulated to encourage development and affordability. Mentioning New York as a paragon of housing policy overlooks its glaring issues with affordability and efficiency—hardly a model of success. In comparison, cities like Chicago, with a different regulatory approach, demonstrate that a more balanced policy framework can indeed foster better housing outcomes. New York’s situation, far from an example to follow, actually underscores the pitfalls of overregulation and the necessity of rethinking housing strategies.
I agree in that the right amount of regulation probably heavily varies between places and over time, but I'd just like to challenge the idea that anything other than complete liberalization of housing investments will inevitably lead to inefficiencies.
> Vienna and Singapore are outliers [...]
A model that has to explain away two historically, culturally, and geographically distinct cities as outliers is not very compelling to me.
Again, I'm not proposing that more regulation is always good, but as soon as e.g. long-term residents are massively getting priced out by outside investors or homeowners start opposing new construction exclusively because of the impact on their property value due to an increase in supply (rather than for actual decreased quality of life), the incentives of the free market start drifting apart from those of the people actually living there.
How about an ultimatum? Either people can only own one house without huge tax consequences, OR we open up restrictions on building so we can build a lot more housing stock than we currently do.
