Yeah, not for them, but for ourselves.

And criminals so bad that they go to jail are thankfully a very small minority of the population, making the total costs of housing and feeding them not that big. (Except in the USA, but that country is rapidly becoming a failed state anyway)

Lucky to be so bad the state houses and feeds you, huh?

I mean, they're sending non-violent climate protestors to prison in the UK, and prison overcrowding is a roblem . I am not an expert but I would really like to see more exploration of non-carceral approaches to both justice and community safety; we need fewer people in cages, not more.

But getting back to rent: the UK very nearly ended street homelessness overnight in 2020. It wasn't handled very well in many respects and I am not saying what was done then is the best way forward, but it suggests that we *could* implement a "Housing First" approach similar to that in e.g. Finland.

The reasons we don't might be partly related to the number of sitting MPs who are also private landlords.

Let's face it, the idea of owning more land than you need and making people who do need it pay you so they can use it is the basis of some kind of evil, but it's an evil so ingrained in our culture we've stopped noticing it's evil. Maybe once one man "owns" everything, we'll all wake up.

We were talking about houses, not about land. Disrgarding this moving goal post, your post suggests that you have issues with the whole idea of capitalism. Is my hunch correct? Of so, we have a bigger discussion.

My position on capitalism is that it generally works very well to efficiently produce and allocate most products and services. It should be regulated and subjected to government subsidies or excize duties every now and than when market power or external effects cause issues.

However it works poorly to distribute income and wealth equally. Serious government redistribution is necessary to create a fair distribution. Imo most European countries so a fairly good job when it comes to income from work, but not enough to redistribute wealth inequality.

I'm not sure it's all that efficient if you include market externalities; certainly waste is one of these. The thing that is cheapest in money is not always the most efficient. I *am* more concerned with justice than efficiency, though.

A, you're one of the people who confuse honest and honourable trading with capitalism. An idea capitalists have ordained should be woven into the zeitgeist. Elon Musk must have worked awfully hard eh? Maybe you should read more... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/23_Thin...

Before reading your link, I am very much not a fan of mr. Musk. Apart from his despicable character, I hate how he uses his wealth (which I think should have been taxed away substantially) to get more than his fair share of political influence.

Like usury but for housing