The Ford Foundation and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation recently committed $1.6 million to the HouseUS Fund. The fund, according to one of the co-directors,
is not about building housing or building homes, it’s about building power. We are looking at the broader definition of housing and approaching it as a right rather than a commodity.
The power that the fund is seeking to build is purely political, and this is the prevailing trend among housing advocates. Among the goals of the fund is a national “Tenants Bill of Rights,” which would protect tenants from eviction and rent increases. They can’t achieve these goals through voluntary means, and so they seek to use the coercive power of government to force landlords into submission. What they don’t realize is, that coercive power can also be used against them. Advocating for freedom–the absence of coercion–is the only rational means to protect rights and enable everyone to attain the values they need and desire.
For decades, environmentalists have loudly proclaimed that they want to do away with industrialization, including fossil fuels and genetic engineering. The anti-human nature of environmentalists is illustrated by their opposition to golden rice, a genetically modified food that contains significant levels of beta carotene (which is converted to Vitamin A). Reason reports (HT: Gus Van Horn):
Vitamin A deficiency causes blindness in between 250,000 and 500,000 children each year, half of whom die within 12 months, according to the World Health Organization. A study by German researchers in 2014 estimated that activist opposition to the deployment of Golden Rice has resulted in the loss of 1.4 million life-years in just India alone. Since 2005, an estimated 14 million children worldwide have died of Vitamin A deficiency and an estimated 3.5 million to 7 million are permanently blind.
Greenpeace has been lobbying for governments around the world to ban golden rice. The organization, along with other opponents of genetically modified food, would prefer that children go blind or die so that nature remains “unsullied” by human activity. However, human life requires us to transform nature to produce the values that we need to survive. To oppose such actions is to oppose human life, as efforts to ban golden rice clearly illustrate.
Last week, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore) introduced the Decent, Affordable, Safe Housing for All (DASH) Act. “America,” the Senator said, “is amidst a serious crisis of housing affordability, and it’s a big challenge that demands big, bold solutions.” As is typical of politicians, the Senator’s “big, bold solution” is to throw an unimaginable amount of money at the problem. The money to pay for this boondoggle will come from increased taxes, inflation, and likely both. So, while the Senator is trying to end homelessness and help low-income families, he will rape and pillage everyone else. What would really be big and bold would be restoring economic freedom to housing producers and housing consumers.