(1) YIMBY policies, if enacted, would be to increase national average incomes by allowing more people to concentrate in high wealth producing areas
(2) the policies would essentially be to disempower local authorities to control land user or zoning, except in a very deterministic way where all projects are automatically approved if local authorities don’t respond by deadlines
(3) you acknowledge that it would increase national incomes and well being for many people
But...your objection is that because capitalism is inefficient/the inequality is not merit based we shouldn’t do this because...
I simply can’t make a connection here, I don’t see any worked examples proving you’re correct about capitalism, and there’s pretty strong evidence that you don’t know what you’re talking about.
The evidence is simple : if companies “close to the money” paying more for services (financial, software, etc) were getting less value per dollar than getting those services elsewhere, over time they will be outcompeted and lose to companies that hire remote workers from cheap areas or on site workers from cheap areas.
It’s the efficient market hypothesis repeated again. Monopolies and oligopolies make the market less efficient but don’t disprove it.
But suppose you convince me that in fact EMH is incorrect in this scenario. Ok, now what? We live in capitalism, it’s the rule, it’s the best of the bad systems so far found. This is not the time to abandon it. Or rather, selectively abandoning it in only the case of housing makes no rational sense.
Like if you were convinced that capitalism needs a reform, that’s fine, but your article should be “how capitalism is broken and here’s how to fix it” not something about YIMBYs. It’s a total non sequitur. Any reforms or fixes need to patch all of capitalism, zoning policy is completely unrelated.
I might point out that in a communist system, the local committees in tier 1 cities refusing to allow enough housing would be replaced. You see what China does in those cities, it’s build build build.
China builds a lot more buildings than they need, because the metrics around house buildings are easy to measure and the local committees goodhard around building a lot of things whether they are needed or not.
Regarding (1), what I disagree about is that people concentrating in high-wage areas would increase productivity or average incomes, because I don’t think the reason wages there are high is mainly because wealth is produced there. My view is that wealth is concentrated there by ownership of assets elsewhere, and sometimes control of deliberately maintained chokepoints (eg Apple’s app store) for other parts of the economy. I do not acknowledge (3) and I’m not sure why you think I do.
The evidence is simple : if companies “close to the money” paying more for services (financial, software, etc) were getting less value per dollar than getting those services elsewhere, over time they will be outcompeted and lose to companies that hire remote workers from cheap areas or on site workers from cheap areas.
That’s like saying “fish don’t have worms because fish without worms would outcompete the ones that have worms”. But in reality, most fish have worms.
Any reforms or fixes need to patch all of capitalism, zoning policy is completely unrelated.
My view is that because of inefficiencies of the current system, the actions of YIMBY activists are counterproductive. I don’t aspire to patch all of capitalism, just to convince some people not to spend their limited efforts on actively making things worse because they imagine an idealized system that’s easier to understand than what exists.
I might point out that in a communist system, the local committees in tier 1 cities refusing to allow enough housing would be replaced. You see what China does in those cities, it’s build build build.
The situation in China is different in more ways than that, so it’s hard to make such direct comparisons.
So to summarize:
(1) YIMBY policies, if enacted, would be to increase national average incomes by allowing more people to concentrate in high wealth producing areas
(2) the policies would essentially be to disempower local authorities to control land user or zoning, except in a very deterministic way where all projects are automatically approved if local authorities don’t respond by deadlines
(3) you acknowledge that it would increase national incomes and well being for many people
But...your objection is that because capitalism is inefficient/the inequality is not merit based we shouldn’t do this because...
I simply can’t make a connection here, I don’t see any worked examples proving you’re correct about capitalism, and there’s pretty strong evidence that you don’t know what you’re talking about.
The evidence is simple : if companies “close to the money” paying more for services (financial, software, etc) were getting less value per dollar than getting those services elsewhere, over time they will be outcompeted and lose to companies that hire remote workers from cheap areas or on site workers from cheap areas.
It’s the efficient market hypothesis repeated again. Monopolies and oligopolies make the market less efficient but don’t disprove it.
But suppose you convince me that in fact EMH is incorrect in this scenario. Ok, now what? We live in capitalism, it’s the rule, it’s the best of the bad systems so far found. This is not the time to abandon it. Or rather, selectively abandoning it in only the case of housing makes no rational sense.
Like if you were convinced that capitalism needs a reform, that’s fine, but your article should be “how capitalism is broken and here’s how to fix it” not something about YIMBYs. It’s a total non sequitur. Any reforms or fixes need to patch all of capitalism, zoning policy is completely unrelated.
I might point out that in a communist system, the local committees in tier 1 cities refusing to allow enough housing would be replaced. You see what China does in those cities, it’s build build build.
China builds a lot more buildings than they need, because the metrics around house buildings are easy to measure and the local committees goodhard around building a lot of things whether they are needed or not.
Regarding (1), what I disagree about is that people concentrating in high-wage areas would increase productivity or average incomes, because I don’t think the reason wages there are high is mainly because wealth is produced there. My view is that wealth is concentrated there by ownership of assets elsewhere, and sometimes control of deliberately maintained chokepoints (eg Apple’s app store) for other parts of the economy. I do not acknowledge (3) and I’m not sure why you think I do.
That’s like saying “fish don’t have worms because fish without worms would outcompete the ones that have worms”. But in reality, most fish have worms.
My view is that because of inefficiencies of the current system, the actions of YIMBY activists are counterproductive. I don’t aspire to patch all of capitalism, just to convince some people not to spend their limited efforts on actively making things worse because they imagine an idealized system that’s easier to understand than what exists.
The situation in China is different in more ways than that, so it’s hard to make such direct comparisons.