Would you withdraw your IP from the rental market?

The reasons why capitalist economies function better (which I am assuming is beyond dispute) is because the market is itself regulation. The customers are regulating the quality of a dwelling, and then setting the price. Regulation typically fails because government bureaucrats don't have enough information to make decisions. Whereas I would prefer all of the potential tenants plus all of the other competing dwellings to regulate the conditions in an apartment.

Inertia, are you asking for an example of a free market without intervention? Or an example of unregulated tenancy market?

What is most common, is that capitalism will solve a problem, and regulators will introduce legislation for a problem that has already been solved and then take credit.

I am sure i am getting too philosophical for this fine forum.

 

I would not withdraw properties from the market but there are a few things I disagree with:
- I personally would not have an inside pet in my house. So why should I be forced to allow a renter to have one in my house.
- Bonds should be equal to the maximum amount of time it takes to get someone out. I have had a number of tenants who 'know the system' leaving landlord out of pocket.

 

I enjoy a bit of the philosophy side of things...

Here is where I disagree with the libertarians or free market pundits (whatever variant you wish to use to describe yourself).

There is no pure free market. A pure free market would be just as bad as, say, an absolutely controlled market.

As @BoatArrival mentioned, "For free market to work there must be informational symmetry.." And I would suggest it goes further than that. It needs an equivalence of power, if you will. In fact, the back of my brain is working on a theory that things like unions and regulation are a direct result of a free market economy trying to balance itself. It is constantly in flux, moving with social norms and economic cycles. Unions came about due to exploitation of workers, but then you look at recent trends with the mining boom and tradies working under subcontractor agreements and bypassing unions as labour was in high demand and had the power to negotiate fairly. With the contraction of the mining industry and reduction in the epic FIFO wages, I would expect to see tradies move back to employee status and lean on unions more.

The tenant/landlord relationship is similar. You will see the regulation change as market conditions change, and so it should. Having a completely free market is not going to work, and neither is having a completely regulated market.

In particular I would dispute this statement "Regulation typically fails because government bureaucrats don't have enough information to make decisions". Regulation at the government level takes into consideration more factors than an individual business would consider (ie more than their own personal interests). There are plenty of examples that demonstrate that businesses will not act in the best interest of the public (cfc usage, asbestos, single use plastics...) Businesses are going to be more responsive and dynamic with a smaller scope, but they are not going to be able to take all factors into consideration.

Cheers,
Inertia.

 

Couldn't have said better myself.

 

Capitalism is just the "non-aggression principle" in economics. It is voluntarism. That's it.

There was exploitation, child labour and slavery for all of human history until Anglo Saxon capitalism came along and disputed this orthodoxy for the first time. Capitalism ended slavery not just because it produced labour saving technology, but because intellectually capitalism is based on individual sovereignty.

So capitalism hadn't created the exploitation - it was there before under feudalism. Capitalism ended the exploitation because it pushed power to consumers. Unions only popped up because previously agricultural populations were starting to concentrate in urban centres and could coordinate political power.

Without this understanding of the inherent moral virtue of voluntary capitalism, it is impossible to understand how some nations thrive, and others don't. Why some value individual sovereignty, and others value collectives. A Marxist interpretation (worst economist ever) places all discrepancies of outcomes as a power struggle. But it is way too simplistic and doesn't get you very far.

That doesn't mean there aren't hierarchies or inequality of outcomes, but it means that the inequalities in market economies are "just". Bill Gates and I have huge income inequality, but he earned it and contributed more than me. So it's fair, right?

There are tall people, short people, ugly people,beautiful people, smart, silly ... infinite numbers of categories. But market economies smoothed this out for the first time in history because it generated so much wealth.

I hear it all the time, but I still don't understand the moral argument against free markets.

Anyway, over and out from me. Back to property.

 

Because once you rent out a house under a tenancy, its not really your house anymore for the period of the lease. That's part of what you're giving up in exchange for rent.

This argument I do support to some extent - increasing the bond amounts, or at least allowing the possibility of it in certain circumstances. Unfortunately, the amendments are going the other way, which is consistent with the approach in the rest of the country really.

 

Actually, feudalism started to decline in the fourteenth century because the Black Death wiped out about a third of the workforce, and survivors found themselves in a world of labour shortages with better bargaining power.

Meanwhile, much of the drive to abolish slavery probably had its roots in the Enlightenment. I'm not convinced that the philosophers were a bunch of capitalists.