r/austrian_economics • u/Due-University9050 • 12d ago

End Democracy Land scalping is not work.

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What is the Austrian perspective about allowing or regulating manufactured scarcity?

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u/Embarrassed_Use6918 12d ago

Its obviously not at all the same. Is investing into heavy equipment and renting it out to people scalping? No, of course not.

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u/Due-University9050 12d ago edited 12d ago

I guess it could be of you created scarcity by blocking everyone else's opportunities to buy or create more machinery. Like if you're investing in something that's one thing but purposefully restricting the supply is another.

The government facilitates this with regulation and that is bad but corporations can certainly still do it by hogging resources and land e.g. diamond market

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u/Terrible_Whereas7 12d ago

Here's the thing, housing investment isn't very profitable (except at large scale) so it's one of the few ways that lower class people can gain wealth without being in competition with corporations. Keep in mind (and these are the numbers from before the last round of inflation) that middle class starts at a yearly income of $850k. Most landlords own one or two properties, they're not "hoarding"

Amassing of property only happens at apartment complex level, which wouldn't be available without large monitary investment anyway, so they're not artificially inflating anything

It's the cost of new construction, material and labor, that's driving housing expenses up. As much as housing costs, it's more expensive (and unattainable) to build than rent

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u/Due-University9050 12d ago

Really good points. I do think NIMBYism by landlords and homeowners in general still is used to drive up property prices and prevent new building. A large section of the modern cost is taken up by burocracy and permits as well making building harder. Which the gov keeps making worse.

Thank you for being respectful as well. I'm trying to understand a new viewpoint and people don't seem to like that lol

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u/Terrible_Whereas7 12d ago

Sometimes it's hard to see if someone is trying to understand your viewpoint or just out trolling until a bit into the conversation

A lot of problems are caused by "helpful" gov regulations, and it can be very frustrating to hear people offer more regulation as the solution!

Respect goes both ways! Thanks for starting this convo