A society that allows land and housing to be hoarded, commodified, and priced beyond the reach of ordinary people is not a society—it is a landlord’s paradise, a feudal system dressed up in modern clothes. Across the world, families struggle to afford homes while corporations, investment firms, and absentee landlords accumulate vast tracts of land and property, not for living, but for profit. The result? Soaring rents, homelessness, and entire generations locked out of homeownership.
In 2021, BlackRock, one of the world’s largest asset managers, outbid regular homebuyers, purchasing entire neighborhoods at prices most families couldn’t compete with. According to the Wall Street Journal, institutional investors like BlackRock and Vanguard now own more than 20% of single-family rental homes in the U.S., driving up prices while ordinary Americans are left with dwindling options. The U.K. faces similar issues; according to a 2022 report by the New Economics Foundation, land ownership in England is astonishingly concentrated, with just 1% of the population owning half the land—a direct legacy of medieval feudalism.
Meanwhile, speculative land hoarding has led to massive housing shortages. In San Francisco, where rent prices are among the highest in the world, a 2020 study by the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project found that more than 40,000 housing units sat vacant, either as investments or held off the market to drive up prices. Hong Kong faces one of the worst housing crises in its history, despite having an estimated 42,000 empty apartments that remain unaffordable for average workers. Speculative investors have left entire sections of London and Vancouver ghostly at night, with luxury condos serving as nothing more than parking spaces for global capital.
Without stable housing, people live in a constant state of anxiety, unable to put down roots, plan for the future, or even sleep soundly at night. The American Psychological Association has linked housing insecurity to chronic stress, depression, and impaired childhood development. Studies from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies have shown that people who spend more than 30% of their income on housing experience significantly worse health and economic outcomes. In a world where a stable home determines one’s ability to function, land speculation is nothing less than systemic cruelty.
Yet, there are solutions. Singapore’s Housing and Development Board (HDB) has created a system where over 80% of the population lives in high-quality public housing, with strict price controls to prevent speculative inflation. Vienna’s social housing model, in which more than 60% of the city’s residents live in publicly owned or subsidized apartments, has ensured decades of affordability. Taiwan’s land reform policies in the 1950s broke the power of exploitative landlords, redistributing land to farmers and ensuring smallholders could thrive. Rent control can tie rent to current inflation levels.
Land and shelter are not optional—they are the foundation of a stable, functional society. A nation that allows its people to be priced out of existence has already chosen its kings and its serfs.
Therefore, under Folklaw:
Land ownership must be tied to actual use, with penalties for speculative hoarding and vacant properties left empty for profit. Large corporate ownership of residential properties will be restricted to prevent monopolization and financial speculation. Community land trusts and cooperative housing models shall be expanded to provide stable, non-speculative homeownership options.
Public housing programs shall be expanded to ensure high-quality, permanently affordable homes for all. Rent control shall be implemented in nationwide to prevent price gouging. Vacant homes and unused land held by investors shall be taxed heavily. Foreign ownership of real estate and land shall be limited to protect local economies and prevent speculative price inflation.
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