Unless You Are an Egalitarian, You'd WRONGLY Think the 'Fair Housing Act' and 'Affordable Homes Act' Were About Making Housing Fair and Affordable.
Our anti-egalitarian liberal politicians count on the have-nots failing to apply the egalitarian yardstick to evaluate their liberal reforms that perpetuate class inequality
For the likes of Jeff Bezos:
and for the likes of a janitor:
All persons who work reasonably according to ability—be they a janitor, or a Fortune 500 CEO, or a person who would love to do useful work but is unable to do so through no fault of their own, or a child or retired person whose reasonable amount of work is zero, or a person caring for children full time, or a student doing their reasonable work by learning in school or an apprentice likewise—have EXACTLY THE SAME right to have what they and their young children need or reasonably desire with scarce things equitably rationed according to need.
The children of a janitor and the children of a Fortune 500 CEO should enjoy the same standards of education, healthy food, quality health care, comfortable living space, quality clothing, leisure time, fun vacations, and healthy and attractive environment.
A janitor, thus, has as much right—no less and no more—to a nice home in a nice neighborhood near where he or she works as does Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates or Elon Musk. And likewise, Jeff Bezos et al have no more right to such a nice home than does the janitor.
This is the egalitarian view.
The Egalitarian Yardstick
Judging things in our society according to whether they are or are not in accord with this egalitarian view is what it means to apply an egalitarian yardstick for evaluating things such as the legislative acts about “fair” and “affordable” housing to be discussed next.
Those who disagree with this egalitarian view can go to hell! Most people agree with it when they are told about it (which is unfortunately seldom). If you think the egalitarian view is “nice but impractical” then go here and read this article about revolutionary Spain 1936-9 and read the additional articles it links to and discover that you are simply wrong. (And go here to read how Karl Marx wrongly argued that egalitarian equality could NOT be implemented until the far FAR future in “a higher phase of communist society.”)
Our oh-so-liberal politicians (and of course the conservative ones too!) disagree with most people about this egalitarian view. This is because they are beholden to the ruling billionaire plutocracy, not “We the People.” They pass laws with names such as “The Fair Housing Act of 1968 ” (federal) and the very recently passed “Affordable Homes Act” (in my home state of Massachusetts.) I have provided links so you can read the details of what these Acts do. You will see they do the following.
These liberal Acts absolutely do NOT say that fair housing must be affordable.
On the contrary, they say that UNFAIR housing must be affordable.
They say that a janitor should have the right to buy CHEAP INFERIOR housing without discrimination because of his/her race but that a janitor has NO RIGHT to live in a home as nice as rich people live in. There’s a name for this: CLASS INEQUALITY, a.k.a. “Some Rich and Some Poor.” Liberal laws NEVER oppose class inequality. But egalitarians do! Egalitarians say real fairness means abolishing class inequality to have “No Rich and No Poor.” Read about egalitarianism here.
These liberal housing laws say that the government should pay money to developers to induce them to build CHEAP INFERIOR (or, as the liberals would say, “affordable”) housing for the likes of janitors, housing that they would otherwise not build because it is not as profitable as nice superior housing is.
And these liberal laws say that some CHEAP INFERIOR housing should be built in areas that have RELATIVELY nice superior housing (but not next door to Jeff Bezos, of course!)
Why does the ruling billionaire plutocracy have its liberal politicians enact these liberal housing laws? Two reasons.
#1. If the likes of janitors have nowhere but a tent to live in, or if they have CHEAP INFERIOR housing but it’s segregated far away from neighborhoods and towns where the housing is nicer, then this will make the injustice of our class-inequality society too damned obvious even to have-nots who don’t yet apply an explicit egalitarian yardstick for evaluating things, and this would hasten the day of revolution.
#2. These liberal laws enable the liberal politicians who write them and the liberal media that agree with them to tell the poorest people that their enemy is the less-poor people who don’t want CHEAP INFERIOR housing built in their neighborhoods. This is standard divide-and-rule operating procedure for all of our politicians and mass media today. Read about how this is being done in Massachusetts with its new Affordable Homes Act here.