Hacker News Reader

Comment by devalier | Hacker News Reader

I think our progressive politics IS to blame: for deluding San Franciscans into believing such a thing is possible.

Actually it is possible. But the irony is that the person who came up with best idea that would have fixed/prevented this problem, has now been ostracized as a "fascist" by the left-wing tech community: http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/04/formali...

If circa 2007, San Francisco itself had been turned into a join-stock corporation, with all the existing residents given shares, then all residents would have grown wealthy as the city grew rich. Furthermore, the government would have had an incentive to allow new housing, since that would increase total tax revenues, and thus increased dividends for all residents. Right now, the politically powerful have no incentive to improve new building, since they do not directly benefit.

View on HN

He's been ostracized for more complicated reasons than "fascism" --- I'm not sure what that word means. I think it's a little misleading to suggest that this is a case of hair-trigger political correctness.

The irony of the "fascism" dig on this thread is that the source you've provided appears to be this person literally arguing for privatization in order to create a corporatist autocracy. By that way: that's the solution to San Francisco's problems you find promising? Or am I misunderstanding you?

I think the author's "practical" political ideas are comical and worthy of ridicule, but that they alone don't make the author problematic. The virulent strain of scientific crypto-racism that seems to run through their writing though; that's a problem for me.

"the source you've provided appears to be this person literally arguing for privatization in order to create a corporatist autocracy. By that way: that's the solution to San Francisco's problems you find promising"

The joint-stock form of government works extremely well for companies that make software operating systems, so I would like to see it tried for companies making physical operating systems (a city being an operating system for people). I don't go as far as moldbug's proposal (and I'm not sure if Moldbug goes as far as Moldbug's proposal, he always likes to frame the debate by making the most extreme argument in one direction). I don't want the corporation to operate the courts or to run the army. There should be an independent court system and the city government would have to follow rule-of-law. But in general, I think formalizing ownership over the city would lead to more pareto optimal solutions, and I think that would be good for the existing residents.

Isn't the basic problem that existing residents already get rich (or at least, don't get any worse off) as the city gets richer, because they have the power to extract rents from new residents? Current owners have every incentive to prevent construction of new housing, because it makes their own assets more valuable. Renters protected by rent control have no inventive to care either way, since their rent isn't going up. The only people who do care are newcomers who didn't get the benefit of rent control, and all the people who aren't moving to SF and contributing to its economy because they're priced out, but they don't get a vote in either case.

With the current system, home owners have every incentive to block new housing. New housing makes their own asset less scarce, and thus less valuable. The home-owner receives zero benefit from the new construction.

With a shareholder system, home owners also have a dividend paying share in the city government. The government pays dividends out of the profits of property taxes. New construction increases property taxes, since new high rises pay a lot more tax than old row homes or vacant blocks. Thus, the owner-shareholder will also gain money from new construction. Conceivably, the city could charge a supplementary "new construction" tax to make the numbers balance out so that home owners would always net gain from new construction. This might not be perfect, the surcharge would discourage building to some extent, but it would be a lot better than the state of affairs right now.

Do new residents get shares? If so, how do you deal with dilution? Seems like that would become a reason to want to keep people out.

Well the exact rules would be determined by the San Francisco power blocks enacting the plan. It would be up to them.

It would be unwise to give all new residents shares, for the reason that you point out. But you would want them to be able to buy shares at market rates. And maybe you also give shares to some class of people who move in, reside a long time, do a certain amount of volunteering, etc.

A simple idea that would likely lead to isolation and calcification. Things like NIMBY and decision to properly address share dilution for newcomers sound like things that simply

The problem is really about how real-estate is now securitized and bought/sold primarily as investments rather than living/working quarters.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com