A good article at the BBC about the history of Home-Owner-Ism:
In 1966 the Conservative party manifesto made a promise. A Tory government would "get the houses up and keep the prices down".
Fast forward to the present day. UK house prices rose 8.4% in the year to January 2015. In London they went up by 13%. There's widespread concern that this is far too fast. That young would-be buyers are being priced out of the market.
And yet the idea that either a Conservative or Labour government would pledge to hold down prices today would be regarded by virtually everyone as far-fetched...
Unfortunately, the author appears to have fallen for the lie that higher land prices = more wealth; they do not.
Higher land prices mean primarily that there are or will be larger net transfers from non-landowners to landowners.
High land prices are not even a zero-sum game. In the grander scheme of things, higher land prices lead to there being less wealth overall in the same way as high rates of taxes on earnings and output lead to lower overall earnings and output and hence wealth.
Debate Magazine
