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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 27, 2023

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I am an unapologetic nationalist at every level. Individuals, neigborhoods, towns, cities, states, and countries should all advocate for their own self interests. If a collection of people want their neighborhood to look the way it does, then that’s their right. Leave them (and me) alone.

If you support housing communism at every level, then you do you. But you will get the standard results of communism.

If you support housing communism at every level, then you do you. But you will get the standard results of communism.

Can you please explain to us clueless readers of your exchange with firmamenti how the hell people advocating for their interests, such as electing representatives to enact preferable zoning policy, constitutes the government owning the means of production?

Houses are part of the means of production (at least according to the people who compile GDP statistics) because they are used to produce housing services. Firmamenti is advocating a system where houses can only be built with the permission of the local government (and where that permission can be granted or denied at a granular level) and can only be used for purposes approved by the local government. That is a system where housing is controlled by the government.

That system, which is what we have and has existed for a very long time, is not communism. The government telling a paper mill that they can't set up their mill in the middle of a residential neighborhood does not make the system communist, so it certainly doesn't make it so when it comes to regulating where houses can be built. If you want to advocate some new understanding of the word "communism" that means something that no one else means by it, you can certainly try to do so, but I doubt it will catch on.