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this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2025
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I have a few suggestions to alleviate this.
Bear in mind that I find it OK, or even desirable, for people to invest, and have some properties to rent to support them in their later years.
1- build public housing, with a rent equivalent to something like 40% of minimum wage. Building should done in random areas, to prevent ghettos from appearing.
2- tax the fuck out of vacant houses.
3- tax house ownership, by individuals or corps, progressively, to discourage accumulation and speculation.
Have 1 house? 0%, 2->10%, 5->15%, and so on, so that having more than let's say, 10 units stops making sense.
3- tax productive empty land (developpable, housing/comercial/agri) like empty homes, to make speculation and accumulation non attractive.
Thare are many more, I'm sure but these protect private property, investment, would lower prices, make housing accesible, while normalizing the sector.
This is democratic socialism. Allow capitalism, but keeping extremes in check, while providing a safety net.
I see americans saying this fairly often, but what you describe is social democracy, not democratic socialism
I generally use the terms interchangeably. Are there fundamental differences?
Yes.
As others have mentioned democratic socialism is a form of socialism.
Socialism is a society where people own and run things together, without capitalism or feudalism or whatever. It is the idea that everyone should own their workplace and their home, either directly or through a state/community they own with everyone else in it. The spirit of socialism is removing all exploitative systems in favor of cooperative solutions. It would mean no renting out locales or apartments, and no bosses (as in owners) etc. There is also this idea that capital and currency should not be a thing as it tends to quickly go into the hands of a few over time, and so we are therefore often in favor of other systems of distributing goods.
Social democracy is liberalism (a form of capitalism) but with social safety nets and systems to limit the harm that capitalism can do, such as strong unions and labor laws. Originally social democracy was implemented by socialists who wanted to slowly bring about socialism, but it has mellowed out a lot and now it's just what you and I describe.
Edit: I feel I should mention that social democracy is generally considered to be in decline. Union participation is down, things are being privatized, labor laws revoked. The socially democratic parties have not just mellowed out it seems, but have drifted right. They often seem more concerned with maintaining the status quo than with improving society.
I think most democratic socialists end up implementing social democratic policies because there's only so much reformism can do.
The problem with utopian socialism is people, as always. There will always some sumbich that will take advantage of the system, as in all real socialisms, like USSR, China, NK, Cuba...
I think that utopian socialism is beautiful, but it doesn't take into account human behaviors like greed, hate, rancor, etc... And the people able to capitalize on that.
Haha no :P
While some of those came about through socialist revolutions they were hijacked by the military who retained the socialist rhetoric. The actual state that followed the revolutions were never socialist, they were at best military dictatorships with some social policies comparable to social democracies.
The USSR is interesting as it was a planned economy. The others are just state capitalist however.
You should read about the revolutions and how they failed! It was never the socialism itself that failed, because it was never implemented in the first place! That's the difficult part.
In general the more egalitarian the system the more obstacles to implement as those who own things have less incentives to implement it (and will do whatever they can to squash it or redirect it). It's not coincidence that liberalism came about only after we got capitalists and a sizeable middle class. We ddin't get democracy because it is a good system, we got it because it was a way for capitalists and the middle class to gain political power. With socialism there is no upper class that will support the revolution, no businesses or government will be on our side because it directly threatens them.
We have a word for those who claim they are a socialist yet support the states you mentioned. We call them tankies. Socialists and anarchists despise them because they are in many ways just like fascists, yet they try to worm their way into our spaces.
Edit:
It specifically does! Also utopian socialism is not a thing these days!
Nice to see the word “tankie” used in its proper context; for once.
This community is explicitly anti-tankie by the actual meaning of the word, so we like to use it properly!
I didn’t even notice I was 196-ing when I commented.
If Ada and the comm are explicitly anti-tankie I’d be neither surprised nor disappointed. Fair enough. I’m happy to browse .ml but really have no problem understanding why other corners of the fediverse / Lemmy avoid them. Not that all .ml uses are Tankies but, yeah. Blahajists have enough shit to deal with just by existing… best of luck to them all. 🫡
I'm in .ml, severely anti-tankie and also a mod here. It is the main dev instance and has some of the largest tech communities in Lemmy.
Whole point of capitalism is breaking the game to get ahead. The meta is too advanced, and we no longer get good stuff out of it as a side effect; that waste has been largely eliminated.
Any solution will not last, unless the beast is slain, and the more we try the more we kludge up the engine. It's not worth running anymore, if it ever was.
Wasn't really ever worth it. There has been calculable dehumanization, exploitation, and genocides all in the name of profit and efficiency. The quality of life going up for some of us in some parts (which is largely because of unions anyways) should not excuse the harm that capitalism has done and continues to do.
As you say, the incentives in the system are not towards a prosperous and stable society, but towards maximizing how much you can squeeze out of people.
So in my opinion it was never worth it is essentially what I'm saying.
I agree, but even for those who don't; it's over. Any illusion of utility is drowned by the rising tide of it's costs, even for those of us who don't live in houses that will be underwater in 10 yew4e
What is a landleech?
Someone who leeches off other peoples hard work by having them hand over a big chunk of their income in order to get a roof over their heads.
this is not a productive way to engage with your peers
thats not what I'm trying to do at all, I just hate landleeches. If I hurt a landleeches fee-fees with a comment I dont care, it still wont come close to the misery and anguish these parasites to the working class cause.
Edit: to elaborate I rented from landleeches before, and heard stories from other renters, this isn't me being righteously outraged but how I genuinely feel about them.
People are getting toxic at you so as OP i just want to send love for your radical [compared to the status quo] acknowledgment that vacant homes should be taxed.
Other people are being mean sickos for a percentage you mentioned, and though I share their perspectives, it still stands true that NO ONE in our current government would be caught dead saying such a radical anti-1% thing as far as I know. Keep fighting for human rights and don’t let the internet trolls push you backwards. ❤️
[There is time in the future for you to learn and perhaps become even more radical <like me lol ✨> but no shame for advocating for basic tier one human rights oriented policies.]
imagine thinking thats radical 🤣
how about housing as a human right? How about abolishing the class system where you have those that own and those who work? Any system which allows for "passive" income is by the definition of the phrase unjust.
radical compared to the status quo, thanks for allowing me to clarify
not starving kids in gaza is radical compared to the status quo, the status quo is not an acceptable benchmark.
As is not having rape-and-torture-dungeons.
Whats that about?
Im just a fucking prude i guess.
I dont know what you're alluding to
Well, i hold some radical prude positions, as much as i fancy myself a bit of a libertine in every other way.
Like not wanting to pay for an unaccoubtable rape and torture dungeon, concentration camp, or forever prison (not qctually into prisons at all, but the unaccountable rape&torture and forever kind are extra nope to me; just cant get off on it). Such a prude in really politically radical ways, even if i think you should also be able to say 'gay' or 'trans' without being demonetized, so im also kind of radical left? Idk. People are complicated i guess.
I still dont know what dungeons you're talking about, epstein, iof, some other fresh horror?
Guantanamo bay, cecot, etc
So, if I write a book, or compose a musical piece, I shouldn't get ongoing retribution? What is my incentive then?
Let me understand this, are you advocating for some style of old school soviet style socialism?
First off creating art is and has been done for millenia without a profit motive, there are a lot more incentives for creating art and every single one of them will lead to a more fulfilling piece than simply a profit motive.
Secondly under capitalism most artists already don't get ongoing retribution. They do work for hire, meaning the company they create their art or music for owns the art and any retribution goes to the owners of the company. How many animators do you think get royalties from disney after they're done?
Thirdly do yo think there were no composers under old school soviet style socialism? They got paid the same as the other workers when creating films or theater productions and other stuff, there just was no royalty system that would have them and their grandchildren collect checks indefinitely without doing labor.
And that style of socialism that lifted millions out of poverty? That taught the common people to read and write? That despite gruesome civil wars was able to turn a mostly agrarian society into an industrialized one just in time to fend back and defeat the nazi beast at enormous cost to itself, freeing an entire subcontinent from the fascist yoke that it's now sliding back under? Yeah consider me a fan.
Here is good video about childrens media in soviet times I found very interesting, and her other videos are superb too, highly recommend watching
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgA6EGMuGCM
Part of the problem is there is no market incentive for speculators and landlords to lower the costs of their units. They use software to set pricing with goes right up to the line of "collaboration" but doesn't quite cross it.
I like the idea of a tax or fine for empty housing that is porportional to the highest advertised lease price of the unit. Let's say 10% for starters, so if an apartment wants to jack the prices up on their "luxury" units to 2k a month, they pay $200 every month that unit is unfilled. 100% of that fine goes to subsidizing housing for low income renters. Now we have an incentive for housing prices to go down, but still have the ability for them to go up to meet actual market demands, and we provide more money for lower income renters to afford that housing in the first place. It also gives us another "lever" to pull to manage the housing market. Increasing or decreasing that tax/fine rate to manage real estate bubbles.
40%? Why not 30%? Or 20%, maybe even 10%?
I think it's better for building to be done mixed-style, eg fancier homes mixed with less fancy ones. Prevents ghettoisation too, and forces the rich to interact with the poor more.
Taxing vacant homes is meh, I think it's better to outright seize them. We then can claim we don't tax vacant homes (as there aren't any).
Plus not taxing vacant homes removes the incentive for the government to make MORE vacant homes. If it's taxed, at least let the vacant home tax be less to the government in terms of profit, than having them be occupied; but more taxed to homeowners. The extra money left should be used in a way that doesn't incentivise people to profit off vacancy. We could for example use it to build new homes which cannot be bought nor owned even partially by people already owning a home - which will drive down the price for vacant homes.
Thus we get an effect of:
too many vacant homes
--> vacancy tax (levied by independent non-profit volunteer agency, which gives a part to government, less to government than if it were occupied; thus giving the government an incentive to build homes).
--> remainder of both vacancy and occupancy tax goes to homebuilding by social housing cooperations (not landlords)
--> more homes are built.
--> More homes
--> price goes down.
--> People are inclined to sell the vacant homes.
--> Fewer vacant homes
--> Fewer are built
--> Price stabilises around rates where vacancy rates are at their lowest and the fewest second home occupiers exist.
We should also necessitate that as much as possible in the government is for and by the people themselves, as decentralised as possible.
Democratic socialism is not capitalism. Democratic socialism is a system without capitalism altogether. What you suggest is social democracy. Which, although it is good too, has its deficit in not tackling for-profit egoistic mindsets enough. While capitalism "excels" at raising productivity for the employer, socialism excels at raising living standards for all. Kropotkin has written more about this in his Conquest of Bread. Very good work, might I say!
I wasn't super with your comment at first, but this point - - holy fuck, watch the "housing crisis" disappear overnight if this was even hinted at.
It'll upset the powers that be, they'll yell communist!
So, increasingly tax'em for a couple of years, then seize them (and maybe use that tax money for remodeling if need be).
I'd go with 1: whatever%, 2 50%, 3 75%, ...
Note that having one house, even occupied is already taxed pretty much universally.
In some jurisdictions, it might make sense, but in rural areas, it generally doesn't. My parents bought a house to live in that happened to come with a second house on the land in the middle of nowhere. No one wants that second house.
The "productive empty land" could be a nightmare, lots of deforestation to ensue in areas that can ill afford it. There's enough dead commercial properties to reclaim before we need to start going after "empty land".
Forested land is already environmentally productive, and can get rebates as such. Developing it wouldn't make much more anyway, as the land value in rural areas is rather low. This tax would hit city property first, and could be implemented for cities only anyway.
In cities, not only would this hit empty residential structures, it would also disincentivise big parking lots and single floor buildings.