We had a 'homeless' guy build his house in a forest, but ofcourse the government showed up to remove him. Many people would sort themselves out if we did not prevent them from doing so.
The narrative of shortage is an obsolete idea from the 19th century. We produce more food, steel, oil, and every other real industrial good than we know what to do with. These discussions are like fighting WW2 with medieval tactics.
Today's economy is not limited by production like it was 100 years ago, its limited by consumption. By growing inequality and pushing people into poverty, the '1st world' is reducing consumption and destroying it's economy.
Think about it - how can we have abandoned factories, unemployed workers and surplus of all materials?
Think what 'productivity growth' means - if 40 hours a week was enough to feed and clothe everyone 70 years ago, and productivity went up 400%, how many hours do we need now?
That why we have useless hobs, and 60% of employees believe their job is useless.
The problem is not about morally corupt rich people being in charge, its about morons being in charge. If they were clever but evil, at least the system would not crash every 8 few years
I am sick of hearing about poverty as a growing problem. It simply isn't.
Median income, and the lowest income quintile, have grown steadily. The percent of Americans living in poverty has been declining. Median wealth is still lower than it was before the 2008 crisis, but it was growing strongly before and has grown strongly since the Great Recession.
All trends are upwards. Do not confuse growing inequality with growing poverty. Some are getting richer faster than others, but statistically everyone is getting richer.
Is there a specific metric in mind when you say people are being pushed into poverty? Or is it something you have just heard elsewhere?
However, even though the overall rates were returning to flat before the pandemic - the percent of people below 50% of the poverty line in the US has been historically higher by 50% than it has been in history since the beginning of the measure.
https://poverty.ucdavis.edu/faq/what-current-poverty-rate-un...
If you're an HN reader, you have to realize that for the most part you are in an incredibly fortunate bubble of being in a job that is in demand in a financially supported sector of our economy - it is not that way for many Americans (or many other citizens of other nations).
Today even an "average poor" person can live better than a king 400 years ago.
It shows about a 12% drop in homeless people 2007-2019. The US population overall grew just under 10%, too, so the drop on a per capita basis is higher than that. I imagine 2020 led to a large increase again, though. I also can't vet their sources without registering so take it with a grain of salt.
Specifically in UK in-work poverty has been going up and up for the past ten years.
I don't think number of houses is the problem, either. People need houses in certain places. That's why homeless hang out in San Francisco where a flat costs 1 million dollars, while a couple of hundred of miles away it would presumably be much, much cheaper.
As for your production, it still all costs energy, and getting energy also costs labor (and even wars, remember the wars about oil).
Abandoned factories simply have turned out to be not economically viable. If you think you can do better, why don't you pool your money with some friends, buy such a factory and start it up again?
You merely display the typical arrogance of socialist who always believe they could run everything better with a "planning economy". And when they finally get to try it out in the real world, they get a major painful reality check.
Take your factories: since they were not economically viable, it would be wasteful and a net loss for society and the economy to start them up again.
You are partially right about increased productivity, and it actually has improved the lives of many people. I personally am very glad that I don't have to spend my waking hours doing hard labor on a field just so that I can harvest some potatoes. Most people in the west have enough to eat, and clothes they can wear, many even have a nice smartphone on top.
Some resources are still limited, though, such as nice places to live in.
And the world population has also grown by a couple of billion people compared to 100 years ago. Your job that fed a family at the beginning of the 20th century still feeds a family today, only in China.
You post is narrow minded and presumptious - I am not socialist, we don't have rent controls in London, and there are economic terms other than 'socialist' and 'capitalist'. Try 'Shumpeterian'
But if you want to go on believing that the only choices are socialism or economic collapse every 8 years, go on.