It should be completely unsurprising that in a society with stagnant productivity growth and high/growing asset prices that our political dialogue collapses into a zero-sum game where the only way one can benefit is by taking from someone else.

If we allow asset prices to grow and wages to continue to stagnate the political arena will become more toxic.

The alarm bells are ringing overseas. Housing and income growth aren’t just economic problems, they’re a threat to the social and political order.

https://twitter.com/s8mb/status/1224445420610277376?s=21 https://twitter.com/s8mb/status/1224445420610277376

This will be obvious to many on the left but I don’t think a lot of conservatives get this yet. Thatcher did (property owning democracy) but clearly NZ would need its own brand of democratising (but not socialising) land ownership.

Anyway I think the pathway is conservative urbanism, coupled with fairly aggressive changes to the tax system (DIT among other changes) but if I had to pick one I’d pick an aggressive housing agenda.

Long-term, wouldn’t opposing a CGT be substantially fucking easier if far more people owned homes?