I love Bertrand Russel.

[Aloone_Jonez]

Where do you think the capital will come from to build them? This will just rack up debt anyway - might as well do a Freddie Mac which does basically the same thing.

The government will get the money back from council houses from the rent people pay. This has been done before, the only idiotic thing was the conservative government came along and sold them at a loss.

The idea with cooperative building schemes is that in theory it will be cheaper if people club together to build houses for themselves rather than getting a company to do it for them. I know this idea isn't for everyone but lots of people might prefer to do it rather than rent a council house.

[Kintaro]

Where do you think the capital will come from to build them? This will just rack up debt anyway - might as well do a Freddie Mac which does basically the same thing.

The government will get the money back from council houses from the rent people pay. This has been done before, the only idiotic thing was the conservative government came along and sold them at a loss.

The idea with cooperative building schemes is that in theory it will be cheaper if people club together to build houses for themselves rather than getting a company to do it for them. I know this idea isn't for everyone but lots of people might prefer to do it rather than rent a council house.

In a liazee-faire system I doubt that housing would be a problem anyway.

[Aloone_Jonez]

Why do you say that?

[Kintaro]

Although we have never had a system quite liazee-faire, the closest systems had greater prosperity and growth of wealth among the poor than any of the more controlled economies.

[Aloone_Jonez]

I don't see how that would help to bring house prices down to an affordable level.

The problem we have in the UK is that demand for housing outstrips supply and that, unlike in Australia or the US, land is very expensive. The housing market isn't interfered with any more than any other area of the economy. There's a lack of afforable housing because the building companies can make more money from building fewer expensive houses that few can afford rathing than building many low cost homes that most can afford. The government have tried to interfere with this by making them build a certain number of affordble homes in every new estate but this hasn't been enough to solve the problem.

I suppose you could argue that the planning laws don't help but if they were relaxed companies would build on greenfield sites and damage the environment.

Perhaps socialist idea of cutting out the big companies and empowering the people to build their own cheap housing and more government owned houses for those who want to rent would help solve the problem.

[Kintaro]

Might just be a lot of red tape on the system (would not suprise me, UK and all) stopping little companies. I've never heard of a "big" construction company in Australia for suburban homes. They're usually middle size companies, which sometimes might use a design from a bigger company under licence.

You might not need a socialist idea to get those big companies out, just a big review of all the red tape that might make it impossible for the smaller companies, which is essentially a free market idea that promotes competition and gets rid of Big $. Too many people seem to see libertarians like myself as for big business, actually it's really quite the opposite. Big government is the best friend big business has. Without all the red tape they're doomed to mediocrity.

[Kintaro]

Except from a comment of mine from a debate on Facebook.

Wikipedia: Social justice refers to the concept of a society in which justice is achieved in every aspect of society, rather than merely the administration of law. It is generally thought of as a world which affords individuals and groups fair treatment ...  Read Moreand an impartial share of the benefits of society.

Lets think about the term "society." Is it a machine that creates without ambitions? No it is not. It is generally a functioning group of people that on the most part exercise civil virtue. Now for someone to get the benefits of society which they are a small part of they need the benefit [note the word, not trade... benefit] of other people.

Ie: Social justice refers to the concept of a society in which justice is achieved in every aspect of society, rather than merely the administration of law. It is generally thought of as a world which affords individuals and groups fair treatment and an impartial share of the benefits of [other people].

Justice in a liberal sense once meant an equal right to live your own life - without impeding the rights of others. There is no fathomable way this perversion of justice called "social justice" can ever be achieved without restricting someone else by requiring they benefit someone something they are incapable of producing or compensating for by the very reason they are incapable of producing it or compensating for it.