• Excrubulent@slrpnk.net
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    1 year ago

    Companies will respond to the marker dictated by the consumer.

    This is a lie that you’ve been told by econ 101. Companies will manipulate the markets through lobbying and anticompetitive behaviours so that the consumer has no other choice.

    For instance, the suburbs are not a natural outworking of market desires, they are mandated by legislation that prevents medium rise and high density urban development, which necessitates cars and also massively overloads the roads so you have terrible traffic.

    This wasn’t a natural outworking of a market, but a deliberate push by capitalists to destroy public transit, build more roads, and lock you the consumer into a world in which you actually do not have any choice. This, not coincidentally, also creates the most wasteful possible way to organise our cities and transport ourselves - individualised cars and dwellings with enormous demands on space. More wasteful systems are as a rule better for capitalists because they create the largest possible market for consumables and redundant equipment.

    • malaph@infosec.pub
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      1 year ago

      Yeah if you want to fix zoning to increase density that’s a local government issue. I personally like having a car and large house outside of the city. I’m absolutely in support of government fixing multi residential zoning … Would have loved better options when I was younger. I’m sure a lot of developers would gladly respond to those market forces if given the option … Do you think it’s nimbys preventing that or capitalists?

      • Excrubulent@slrpnk.net
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        1 year ago

        We live under capitalism. That means, explicitly, that capital has all the power. To the extent nimbyism is a real problem that’s because it’s been stoked by capitalist propaganda and fueled by the artificial fear that their property prices will go down. Homeowners have been taught to think in those terms rather than about what will actually affect their quality of life because the nuance-flattening logic of the market permeates our thinking.

        • malaph@infosec.pub
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          1 year ago

          You show me a single home owner who’s enthusiastic about having a large multi-unit built next door … I wouldn’t be happy personally.

          If you think capital has all the power look at TC energy’s keystone pipeline. Look at LNG facility approval in Canada. No shortage of capital there but those projects are dead.

          If there’s demand for something (housing) markets will solve that problem you just get out of the way and let them. Capitalists would love to sell the same acre of developed realeatate to more than one person. Remember - they’re greedy.