To wonder what the country would be like of we all live in ha/council houses

[JazzAnnNonMouse]

And no one owned property? If everyone lived in a space that was good for them and their family and we all paid the same based on space ie 1 bedroom = PCM 2 bedroom = a bit more PCM.
This would mean that no one would get the rough end of the deal as mps would also be in the same situation.
Fair rent for everyone, money constantly going to the government.
I wonder if it'd encourage people to have more children or prohibit them from wanting more I they had to move to allow for another bedroom but then had to pay more?
Probably flawed massively somehow but I don't see why it couldn't work?

People want to own their own housing for security as privately renting isn't secure housing.
Yes this would mean that people that own lots now would 'miss out' on their future earning but they wouldn't be any worse off than everyone else.
It surprises me that the good of all doesn't appeal but the good of a few does.

I don't want to live in a totalitarian society either - suggesting a different housing system doesn't equate this I don't think.

I don't think humans are inherently selfish but I think the society we live in is.

Abra1d

50,000 Romanians and Bulgarians a year for five years. So a quarter of a million extra people.

Yes, that's the estimate made by the same people who underestimated Eastern European migration by a factor of 10. You'll forgive me if I'm skeptical of their claims. I think a million is an underestimate, given that 44% of Bulgarians are currently living in material poverty (which is rather different to our own, politically contrived measure of 'poverty'.

JazzAnnNonMouse

Yes this would mean that people that own lots now would 'miss out' on their future earning but they wouldn't be any worse off than everyone else.

So if we're all poor and miserable, that's OK? Why would any of these people who you're stealing stuff from stay in the country? In fact, why would anyone want to stay in your country when they can't own land or a house?

It surprises me that the good of all doesn't appeal but the good of a few does.

This isn't the good of all. Everything you're proposing is evil.

I don't want to live in a totalitarian society either - suggesting a different housing system doesn't equate this I don't think.

Yes it does. Look at what you're suggesting! You're suggesting that government - a single body - has total control of the ownership of land and property. How much more totalitarian does it have to be for you to accept that it's totalitarian?

I don't think humans are inherently selfish but I think the society we live in is.

If it's "selfish" to not want my housing to be 'allocated' by a corrupt official, then yes, I'm selfish.

The system you are proposing isn't for the good of all. Once again, its for the good of a few. You would like to rip people out of their homes if they are large and give the to others. You would like 'the state' to decide who gets to live where. You seriously think that all homes could possibly be equal?

Who is this mythical state made up of who run this utopian housing system? Is it some of those selfish socialist leaders we've had? Multi millionaire, Tony Blair and flat swapping Cherie? Super-tax avoiding Ken Livingstone? Or perhaps a return to the old days of those upstanding men like Derek Hatton?

The idea that people like this would have total command of our housing system is terrible - and really, history has shown it to be an abject failure.

I don't like the idea of anything that restricts freedom. Something like making government control all housing would only be the start of it, it's not the sort of policy you can have without it affecting other things that would end up being seen as equally unfair.

Where would you draw the line? Petrol rationing, a limit on how much food we can eat, how often we are allowed out of the country?

If everyone in the country was forced to live in virtually identical property, we would pretty much collapse because none of the wealthy would still want to live here, and society cannot thrive if one section of it is removed. We are all dependant on each other.

And what about farmers who wanted to live in a farm house on their land? What about all the small businesses that operate from home because people have turned their spare bedroom into an office, or their detached garage into a catering kitchen (for example)?

It's a ridiculous idea.

But the government is 'us' we vote them in and any one of us can become elected if we are successful.

They are the governing body that represent us.
How I would really like the country to be run is everyone make all decisions by referendum - this couldn't be seen as unfair?

I'd like more decisions to me made by referendum too, but that's a completely different thread.

The government does not represent us. We have to many different ideas and not enough politicians that we trust to represent our view. None of us have that in this country at the moment, no matter where our politics lie.

If government was capable of representing all of us, we wouldn't have ended up with a hung parliament and a dodgy coalition.

Flat pack hamster - how is everything I propose evil?

Might sound good in theory but in practice 'some are more equal than orhers'.

Yes it is but it's not totalitarian then is it?

The fact that we elect them, doesn't and hasn't stopped them being corrupt.
We need a system of checks in place, and we need power not to be concentrated in any single group's hands. - You are suggesting a single group of officials have power. It's ridiculous.

Why would you suddenly expect all politicians would become "good" if they were given more power.

All decisions made by referendum? You are joking, right? We would be voting (and counting votes) every single day - and who would decide on which issue first? Referendums can be very unfair.

JazzAnnNonMouse

But the government is 'us' we vote them in and any one of us can become elected if we are successful.

Really? The government is 'us'? How represented do you feel? Which one of the Oxbridge PPE graduates who went on to be a spin doctor and then got given a safe seat by his party represents you?

Flat pack hamster - how is everything I propose evil?

OK, picture this. You've lived in a house for 30 years. You and your husband bought it together, it was your first house. You raised three children there. Your children come back with their grandchildren at weekends. Over there, in the garden, is the apple tree your husband planted when the first child was born, and it gives a crop of fat red fruit every year. The worn patch of grass reminds you of the swing you had which the children played on.

And you want the government to take that house - and everything it means - away from that family, and give it to someone else. What part of that is not evil? Where are you doing good there?

The trouble with everything you've suggested, is that you're treating people as things. People as things, that's where the evil starts. You're not treating them like human beings with thoughts and feelings and aspirations, you're treating them like little toys who will be glad to be shoved in to their new State Approved Property.

There's only one thing worse than someone who does evil because they're evil, and that's someone who does evil because they think they're doing good.

But if it benefitted someone else more and they could create happy memories there too then why is that evil? Its not saying right now you have no where to live its just saying you have some where different to live. It's surely just progressive housing?

My op was flawed (as I've said previously) as it didnt take into account all things that place a value on a house but suggesting its evil is quite silly!

You seem to think that those that have now are more deserving of it than those that don't. This isn't always the case.

No I don't feel represented now but that's an entirely different thread - that's how this system is suppose to work, it's supposed to represent us.

Why is people voting everyday a bad thing? Isn't that true democracy? Power in the hands of the people

So you don't agree with social housing ok, what about capping rent?

This is a brilliant idea, i could stop work and be in the exact same situation as my very hard working neighbour.

I agree with social housing, and clearly we need much much more of it. Everyone should be entitled to it if they want it, but that doesn't mean you have to prohibit home owning as well.

Surely no one would work. We would all be in committees deciding what today's election would be. I would have ten children - I've got my eye on a nice house I could have already. The occupants could bog off.

And I don't think you can cap rent fairly without capping how much one property can ever be worth, or without forcing the banks to write off people's mortgages.

YABU.

Everyone would stop trying if we all lived in state subsidised housing.

How are you going to implement it? Are you going to use force to move people out of their current homes? Because there will be a lot of kicking and screaming.

Humans are inherently selfish IMO, that is why society is.

Morloth - I think it's that our society makes us selfish, not all cultures and societies are.
I'd like to think humans weren't inherently selfish.

Name one that isn't/wasn't selfish.

Watch what chip families do to interlopers.

Name one that isn't/wasn't selfish.

Watch what chimp families do to interlopers.

Ooh bagsy I get to decide where everyone lives. I'm really selfless, me!

(everyone who agrees will get a nice place)