We’ve been hearing a lot about the Ownership Society. What the heck is the Ownership Society? According to the Cato Institute:
An ownership society values responsibility, liberty, and property. Individuals are empowered by freeing them from dependence on government handouts and making them owners instead, in control of their own lives and destinies. In the ownership society, patients control their own health care, parents control their own children’s education, and workers control their retirement savings.
Don’t you get warm fuzzies just reading that, the radical notion that people should be responsible for themselves and their own families, and nobody has the right to interfere? There is, of course, another way to state that paragraph: eat what you kill.
The Bush Administration has been using this idea of the Ownership Society as a big umbrella to cover everything from school choice (vouchers and charter schools) to Social Security “reform” (private retirement accounts) to tort reform (protecting corporations from you).
The bottom line is that “eat what you kill” is great when you are a big predator, not so great if you are not. To succeed in an Ownership Society, you must have money with which to Own. If you don’t have the money to sink into very illiquid Health Savings Accounts and Private Savings Accounts and A House, the opportunities offered seem rather hollow. Most people don’t have the money or the skills to succeed in an Ownership Society. Indeed, most Americans are in debt, and not just mortgage debt.
Which brings us to the lynchpin of the Ownership Society, the idea that home ownership is good and desirable for absolutely everyone. Some people are finally starting to question the universal wisdom of that idea; not saying that owning real estate is bad, but rather that it is not for everyone, and that not everyone will benefit from owning a home. A plethora of new lending products and low down-payment options means that people who really can’t afford to do so are buying houses. And the fact that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are willing to buy the mortgage, regardless of quality, exacerbates the problem. For that matter, the idea that home ownership is universally good assumes that people can afford to own quality homes in decent neighborhoods; homes that can be maintained, are safe, and will appreciate in value. This is not necessarily so. And I haven’t even touched on the fact that home ownership puts a geographical damper on employment and educational opportunities.
The Ownership Society is a great idea for the Owners at the top. For the rest of us, it’s the Debtor-ship Society.