Comment by sudosysgen
5 years ago
No, it simply isn't. The valuable part of housing is land and land cannot be consumed by housing.
Its not a signal of the ability to procure resources, it's that housing is the single most major cost and homelessness is the most major financial risk. What's attractive about it isn't that you can consume endless amounts of plastic and steel by proxy, it is that you eliminate risk.
>Its not a signal of the ability to procure resources, it's that housing is the single most major cost and homelessness is the most major financial risk.
In my opinion, that one can afford the single most major cost and avoid the most major financial risk is a possible signal of the ability to procure (or defend) resources.
>What's attractive about it isn't that you can consume endless amounts of plastic and steel by proxy, it is that you eliminate risk.
I agree. But I choose to define the word "consume" in this context to refer to being able to walk away with a contested resource. The more contested the resource, and the more you obtain of it, the more you signal your ability to procure and defend it.
That is why I distinguished access to housing in places with high demand versus access to housing in places with low demand in my previous post.
This is still very contrived. If all housing does is signal income, then why is housing so much more attractive than an expensive car or an expensive watch?
Even in places with low demand stable access to housing is still attractive. It's just rarer in places with high demand. This is reproduced in many cultures, for example in some Arab countries "renter" is an insult to someone you are dating.
>If all housing does is signal income, then why is housing so much more attractive than an expensive car or an expensive watch?
I do not understand what you mean by this, but I do not claim that "all housing does is signal income".
Let me re-characterize my statement for the basis of this discussion, which is that the vast majority of people would have an ideal goal of earning an ever increasing amount of money, regardless of capitalism.
My contention is that due to the way people rank themselves versus each other, they will be interested improving (or at least maintaining) their position in the rankings. Why would they want to rank themselves? I posit that it helps for attracting mates. One can even go deeper and attribute it to the function of an ego, or some mechanism in the brain that incentivizes one to assert their priorities over others', allowing them the ability to not only survive, but compete.
Going back to your initial reply:
>What is attractive is social status - in capitalism this is linked mostly to wealth but that's not a given at all. Another thing that's attractive is stability, but that doesn't have anything to do with consumption, in today's world it means having stable access to housing, ideally owning it, mainly.
I agree that it is about social status, which is what I am referring to by people ranking themselves (and each other). But money or not, the root of the ranking is power. Who has more power than who. Money is a proxy for power, which can exist with or without capitalism, so as long as there is money, I would bet that people (in general) will want more and more of it.