I'm deeply angry about a particular social issue and feel helpless. So what can I do? I've concluded the only thing I can do is try to create on online community and movement.
So I come here to my community Hacker News, where there is infinite skill and capability in building online community, campaigns and movements and I ask for help.
It seems to me that any social movement needs a catchy name, so I've created that (see below).
The next thing I have done is create a subreddit with the name of the social movement (again see below).
I also created a website a while back, although does not use the catchy name I created, so it needs updating (again, see below).
But really the things I've done above are just guesses. I have no idea how to create a social movement and change the world.
Thanks!
I have the subject matter below, to avoid this post being seen as HN spam:
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The subject of the social movement:
The catchy name "Real Estate Rebellion".
The goal: I want to end housing as a financial investment in Australia.
The issue: I'm deeply angry about what has happened with house prices in Australia.
Ordinary people - teachers, nurses, public servants will never be able to buy a house in Australia. In fact even well paid people who don't currently own will never be able to buy a house. It wasn't like this before. In Australia, some people own multiple houses, 1/2/3/4 or more and others own none - society has been split into renters and landlords. The politicians all own multiple houses and dare not say a single word against raging house prices.
I want to end housing as a financial investment in Australia. I know this is a deeply radical idea but I think it's valid - why should housing be a financial instrument? Let's end the house prices ponzi scheme.
The subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/realestaterebellion/
The website: https://site-153316-2260-6863.mystrikingly.com/
Here's what the (unattainable) end goal of a successful grass roots campaign would look like to me:
1: end foreign ownership of residential real estate, close the markets to non-residents. It's obvious isn't it? Selling our houses to overseas buyers is reducing the supply and driving up prices. Time to end all foreign ownership of Australian residential real estate. Existing foreign owners will get 4 years to sell currently owned properties. Only citizens and people holding permanent resident visa will be permitted to buy residential property. Companies may only own new residential property that is in the process of being sold to individuals.
2: end negative gearing entirely. "Negative gearing" is an Australian tax policy which effectively pays government money to people who buy multiple houses. It is simply giving money to property investors and worsening the problem. Negative gearing to be unconditionally eliminated.
3: Heavy extra taxes for "Monopoly" property hoarders. The government rewards people who "Monopoly hoard" residential properties. Instead of paying money to monopoly hoarders, we will introduce new taxes to discourage accumulating portfolios of residential properties. Call it "positive gearing" if you want.
4: There's no reason for a family to own more than two houses.
5: Active, direct government financial co-ownership support to help anyone who wants to buy a house.
> When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world. I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation. When I found I couldn't change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn't change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family. Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself, and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed the world.
- Rabbi Israel Salanter (1809-1883)
-- George Bernard Shaw
The key word here is change v/s progress.
The classic example of this is commuting via car v/s bicycle. The staggering amount of resources dedicated to solving this problem can be termed as progress with better infrastructure, cars (self-driving even) - contrast it against the change that those who can change to commute via bicycle.
We can only know progress in hindsight and only at things that can be quantified. It is self-serving in that sense, when you exclude the non-measurable.
I also think you need to balance the pros and cons of online activism. The pros are, obviously, that you can spread a message cheaply and build communities. A major con is that it's easy for people to just do the online part. If people have some impulse to support your movement, and they can entirely satisfy that impulse by participating in a subreddit, you may find that all you accomplish is building a subreddit.
I have no advice or idea about how to balance the pros and cons, it just seems to me that there are pros and cons. A group that just complains about something is easier to create than a group that solves a problem. Maybe the complaining group is necessary to raise awareness - but maybe it is also a distraction.
Finally, I would think you would want to experiment and iterate. Both with your approach to organizing and with your actual solution. There is a benefit in starting small - easier to make changes and less consequences if you're wrong.
You have an audacious, but specific goal. That's great!
You have at least one person who cares about the outcome of your campaign (you). That's good, you'll need more
1. You need a power map. https://commonslibrary.org/power-mapping/ is a good resource to get you started. Get together some mates, preferably ones who've interacted with the political process before (They'll be more likely to know the players) and start mapping. Once you've got a good power map, that's a good time to reflect: Does this campaign still seem achievable? Is there too much power in the top-left quadrant, and not enough in the top right / middle? Movements that lack a good 'center' of persuadable+influential actors generally fizzle out, so you might want to consider tailoring your campaign goal.
2. You need a theory of change. How do we get from here to there? https://www.thechangeagency.org/?s=theory+of+change is a good start. Don't lock in to a particular tactic too readily, and be prepared to iterate
3. You need power. This both informs and influences your theory of change. Is your power electoral, financial, social?
4. You need a logframe. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_framework_approach How will you know if your campaign is working? What intermediate metrics of success can you identify that are both impactful and measurable?
There's a mountain of campaign theory and literature to read, but that's enough to get you started assessing if your campaign is a goer at all. Hope it helps
You see a website and think, the website is doing the work, but it isn't. The organisers are working super hard, grinding away.
Your Reddit community might be a piece of the puzzle but just a small one.
There are many books on the theory of social change. Start reading. Your specific issue here (housing affordability) is at least defined in scope and on political parties radar. But you need to find out why they talk about it but never fix it.
The problem you may face next is the consequences of what you have done.
Where will all those investment funds that were destined for housing end up instead? What will be the effects of that shift?
Who will buy the politicians next, and what will they make them do?
So long as you are prepared to keep on making and spending new vast fortunes, you will always be able to right the wrongs you see in society by buying more politicians over and over again so that your view prevails. That's the inherent strength of a liberal democracy like Australia. It is robust and responsive to the wishes of the people.
The irony is that had I made a vast fortune, I would likely not care about this issue.
I've noticed that people who own houses don't give a second's thought to this issue, or they don't see it is a problem. In fact, the opposite - if you own a house then you want to opposite of what I am campaigning for - you want prices to keep skyrocketing to infinity.
The only people who own a house who care about this issue are those who have kids/grandkids and are concerned that those kids are forever renters.
Put more simply: if you own a house then you don't give a ** about people who don't own a house.
Buy your own land, build a multi-unit building, and then rent it out to people at a fair price.
You’ll come away with a much greater practical understanding of the issues at hand than you’ll ever get by trying to organize people over the internet, and you’ll have tangibly helped yourself and a few other people.
Check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwl3-jBNEd4 for more info.
People nearer the end of their life and with no children who own houses are the big winners here.
If you own a home and want a bigger one, then the price rises hit you proportionately. If you want to move to another location, you may come out even but it adds a lot of drama to the process. You've probably overinvested in housing, because you see a need for a big house later and buying/renting your own current needs would hurt you later.
If your kids want to move out then you'll probably end up using your gains to get them onto the owner side of the equation.
So most people probably want to unwind this. The problem is (like climate change) one of 'collective action' (See Mancur Olson) in order for most to benefit they need to act together (your social movement) but therr will be small, concentrated pockets of power that can take advantage of the situation for their own benefit.
Part of the issue is that our efforts are unlikely to have any lasting effect.
Founding the movement on an enduring ethical basis is a tricky feat.
Your quoted phrase is both honest and indicative of the challenge in making any changes that will outlast the individual who implements them.
They need to put some serious brakes on housing as a investment in aus. It's fucking our country. But fat luck telling half the country your about to make them feel judgement day for their shitty high risk low value house stock as it comes crashing back to reality.
Maybe if you can popularize that policy somehow you might speed things along. Do any of the smaller or regional political parties already support that?
Found this while googling:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Tax_Review
Nothing stops them from doing that at all; in fact they should.
Total rent = (rent from the improved structure on the land) + (rent from land)
Landlords should be given the right to extract money from people because they have built a nice house for renters to live in. Where Georgism disagrees is that that landlords shouldn't be given the right to extract money from people simply because they own land there (the second part of the equation). Or to be more precise, a large chunk of the money extracted from land ownership gets taken from landlords so that they don't derive much value simply from owning land and doing nothing with it.
That incentivises landlords to increase the value of the building on the land (e.g. higher density housing, batteries and solar panels, longer-lasting structures) in order to increase the portion of the rent that the landlord gets to keep.
But there is a necessary one. You have to start locally, you just have to try something. The part about it that's equally annoying and exciting is that you're not going to end up where you thought you would, but you will be able to look back and have done something -- and probably found some new set of problems or opportunities to tackle.
(Source: I started a STEM non-profit. That exploded into a ton of very different random and messy-but-good things that I'm a part of, but I don't do much of the STEM education part that I intended to, these days)