The problem with far too much economic, even social, commentary is that near no one asks Thomas Sowell’s important question, “Compared to what?”
We’ve been told that privately owned, owner occupied, housing is bad, terrible, no good. For some set of complex reasons rooted in the idea that property is theft perhaps. We’ve also been told, and policy has acted upon, the idea that private rentals are bad, terrible, no good. Why should anyone be able to profit from something as essential as another’s need for a roof over their head?
There’s not really much left as an alternative except for the idea of some sort of socially owned housing which is then rented. But this is now being described as terrible, bad, no good:
This squalor was supposed to be her fresh start. After some hard years, the 38-year-old had just got remarried and fancied a new life in the suburbs of London. On viewing, she’d had some worries, but the family were assured that central heating and double glazing would arrive at the property before they did. They were even asked to pick a colour for the new door. And since those promises came from the country’s biggest housing association, Clarion, Sultan believed them.
Bad move.
The thrust of the piece is indeed that this communal, charitable, model is also terrible, no good, bad. As with Awaab Ishak, where the two year old’s death was laid at the door of a social housing provider.
At which point the argument seems to have rather boxed itself into a corner. All housing models - private ownership, private rental, social rental - are terrible, no good, bad.
So what do we do now then? Ask Sowell’s question - compared to what?
Not, what is the housing system that produces no bad outcomes because as the complaint is there isn’t one of those. Which is the system which produces the least horrors and the most benefits? That is, compare the models to each other, not against some list of impossibilities.
We’re not, here, about to insist upon any one of the three. That’s not the point we wish to make, even though we’ve clearly got views. The point we do insist upon though is that we’ve got to be asking the right question.
Which is not what is a theoretically perfect housing system? Rather, among the systems that are possible which is, while comparing the real world results against each other, the best we can do?
We do tend to think that at least a modicum of capitalist and market rigour would be a more than useful ingredient of such a better system. That people lose money, jobs, for being bad at housing management seems to us to be an incentivising ingredient of any system. But that’s just us projecting our more general tendencies onto this one specific problem.
The standard analysis of British housing is now moving to the idea that all three possible systems are terrible, bad, no good. Shrug, OK, which is the least bad then?