Propositions? You don't even need to go as far as propositions to find utter screwheadedness in California politics. They don't make the papers, they don't run ads on the television - but by far the biggest, most evil, most destructive screwheads in California are in LOCAL politics.
And I don't have to go far to find them. You know how far I have to go? To find the bloody-knuckled droppings of Screwheadia California? About a mile and a half.
That's how far away Tilden Park is.
Tilden Park. I love the idea; I love the place. I'm a BIG FAN of the outdoors. I've read EVERYTHING that Edward Abbey has ever written. There is NOTHING that makes my cojones rise faster than the thought of TROMPING through the WILD OUTBACK knowing that I'm out of pissing distance of EVERY OTHER MEMBER of the HUMAN RACE.
I wish the whole world were like Tilden Park. Except with real grizzly bears. It's beautiful.
Unfortunately, I also have a distant, peck-on-the- ear relationship with... ECONOMICS. And here's what Madame Economics tells me when I look at Tilden Park:
``Curtis,'' she says, ``that's ten thousand acres of the finest real estate in AMERICA, and it's lying entirely FALLOW, and you're paying for it.''
``Paying for it? But I only pay a couple of bucks to get into Tilden.''
``Wrong, kiddo. You pay a THOUSAND DOLLARS a YEAR to get into Tilden, and most people pay MORE.''
Now, this seemed a little peculiar on the face of it, so Mme. Economics and I had a little talk. And she told me some interesting things.
Let me introduce you to the California real estate market. Hell, let me introduce you to the AMERICAN real estate market. It's fascinating; it's like nothing else in the world.
Do you have parents? Bingo. ``I knew it!'' Do they own a house? Bingo. Do they vote? Bingo number three. WE HAVE A WINNER! Those are ALL the facts you need to explain the current screwed-up state of the nation.
Surprised? Well, here's how it works. Let me introduce you to the concept of the SEVENTIES. The Seventies gave us lots of wonderful things. They gave us platform shoes; they gave us the Monkees; they gave us cocaine. Let's hear it for the Seventies.
Unfortunately, though, some of those fads stuck around longer. I'm going to pronounce their names now. This may summon a minor imp or two, which you should be able to dispatch easily - if you're prepared. Get out your tennis racket and make sure that can of demon spray is at least half full.
The magic words are: MORTGAGE-INTEREST TAX DEDUCTION, and LARGE-LOT ZONING.
The mortgage-interest tax deduction was one of the more brilliant works of the Great Society. People, for some reason which no one remembers any more, thought that young, not-so-rich people should be able to afford their own houses. The solution? In the classic Lyndon Johnson throw-a-brick-at-it vein, it was simple. Give people a tax break on their mortgage payments.
A great idea, eh? Well, uh, not. As anyone with even the faintest semblance of an economic clue would have realized, this created enormous incentives for people to invest their spare capital in REAL ESTATE SPECULATION. Can you say ``productive,'' boys and girls? I knew you could.
And Yuggles, the Evil God of Coincidence, was active that day. Because, at the very same time, people were first finding their environmental Jesus. ``Hey,'' they said, ``we don't like all those naaa- sty cities. Cities are naaa-sty. Let's stop building them.''
This brilliant feat of political-economic wit took about twenty years to seep into the popular consciousness, but those wonderful folks in Local Politics, ever ahead of their time, seized upon it at once. They came up with a word of their own - and that word was `Open Space.'
Open Space, the theory goes, is something that people NEED. Even if they don't generally like to pay for it on their own, they NEED it, and we have to GIVE it to them. Because it's an ENVIRONMENT thing, you see. If you don't protect the environment, what will happen?
So, to protect Open Space, they passed - TA-DA! Large-lot zoning laws.
Farmer Jones has been farming cabbages all his life; the city is getting bigger and bigger; now his land is right next to the city and people want to live there. Farmer Jones thinks his land would be a lot more useful for houses than for cabbages. Somebody with a lot of money agrees; he wants to buy Farmer Jones' land and build houses there.
Here's where Local Government steps in. ``You can build houses on that land,'' says Commissioner Smith, ``but you can't subdivide it into lots smaller than an acre. We need to preserve our OPEN SPACE. We need those environmentally crucial CABBAGES.''
Do the people who elect Commissioner Smith think he's silly? No, they don't. Why not? Because, under guise of cabbage, Commissioner Smith is doing something very nice for them. He's making sure that CHEAP HOUSES don't get built in their area.
What does that do? Welcome to the world of the SUPPLY-LIMITED MARKET. Prices rise like balloons. Lots of people - your parents and mine - get very very very rich.
Is this good? Well, it's good for them. But wealth is not being created. Nobody's making anything. That money is coming out of somewhere and it's not thin air.
Where it's coming out of is SPECULATION. Now, speculation is just another word for `investment,' and what this means is that, during the 70s and 80s, when housing prices were shooting up like the Space Shuttle, that was because a lot of people were investing in real estate.
Real estate is not a 'productive investment.' It's not a factory; it's not a university. It doesn't make neat toys, or things that can make neat toys, or people who can make things that can make neat toys. Fundamentally, it's an economic dead end. While the Japanese and Europeans were investing furiously in capital equipment, our money was lying around in real estate. Still is, too.
Can this explain all the problems of the US? Yes. Give me a problem and I'll tie it back to the Real Estate Bubble. It's easy; I may not be Bill Clinton but I can twist a word or two myself.
Is it the only cause? Of course not.
But it comes a lot closer in California. Because California, you see, has the disease much worse. Urban-area housing prices on the East Coast may be twice what they are in the rest of the country, but urban-area housing prices in California are twice what they are on the East Coast.
This is because a lot of Californian localities didn't bother futzing around with this large-lot zoning game. They just denied building permits - period. Two thirds of Alameda County - the county that contains OAKLAND, for christ's sake - is Open Space.
And I pay $500 a month for a two-hundred-square-foot hole in someone's basement - in a house that would cost $200,000 in Arlington, VA or Teaneck, NJ and is worth $400,000 here. That's where I'm paying a thousand dollars a year to get into Tilden Park - and that's a lot of why there are so many homeless people on the street in Berkeley.
And that's why California still has 11% unemployment and rising. Who the hell is going to put their company here, when they have to pay their employees 20% more, for decent housing?
Think about it for a minute.
Curtis Yarvin (curtis@snake.CS.Berkeley.EDU) is a Ph.D. Candidate in Computer Science at the University of California at Berkeley.