The housing discussion in Seattle is  so rife with jingoism and rhetorical sawdust that trying to figure out what the housing problem ( if there is a problem at all) might be and how best to solve it is exceedingly difficult. Phrases like “social justice” and “equity” are frequently thrown about and it is impossible to tell what the speaker or writer means by these terms. As George Orwell aptly said in his monumentally important but very short essay, “Politics and the English Language,”

But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know better.

The word equity has simply come to mean “a good thing we want for poor people,” and has lost all quantitative sense of meaning. Can we really achieve equity? Is there a state of affairs in Seattle in which every single person will have the exact same housing, or even the same amount of money to spend on housing? Is this even desirable? The misuse of the word equity is what I want to focus on by summarizing another great but much more involved article called, “The Scourge of Upward Redistribution,” by Steven M. Teles in National Affairs.

First of all, do we really want equity? Or are we seeking rather more opportunity for everyone in the housing market place? Teles sets the stage for his article that tries to both rescue the word equity from misuse but to acknowledge that maldistribution of resources is a problem to be solved, not with more rules and regulations but realizing rules and regulation can in fact contribute to problems with the distribution of wealth and resources.

Although they often strive to avoid it, conservatives have every reason to admit that exploding inequality at the top of the income scale is a major problem, too. To accept this is not to indict market capitalism. Much of the tension between equality and economic dynamism dissolves when we focus on inequality generated by public policies that distort market allocations of resources in favor of the wealthy — what we might call “upward-redistributing rents.” These rents are large and growing, produced by inherent flaws in democratic governance that facilitate the use of the state to enrich the already advantaged. If high-end inequality is not diminished by removing the ways the wealthy use the state to extract resources from the rest of society, the inequalities that conservatives believe are just — those that flow from innovation and hard work — will be in danger. In short, inequality will become a threat to free exchange itself.

Teles is using the term rent in a different way than what a tenant pays a landlord. He’s talking about where individuals end up paying into a system and where those payments get distributed. Right away, I couldn’t help but think when I was reading the article how the Seattle City Council and Mayor’s obedient avoidance of challenging single-family homeowner hegemony over housing policy is a form of an upward distribution of benefit toward people who are already wealthy. Teles does make this point.

Finally, rents also play a critical role in the increasing concentration of wealth among the already-wealthy few. In a widely discussed critique of Piketty, economist Matthew Rognlie shows that the real driver of increased wealth at the top end is not returns on industrial or financial capital but housing-price appreciation. Housing is a highly regulated and subsidized sector of the economy, and constraints on housing supply relative to demand are especially severe in the areas with the highest concentrations of high earners, like San Francisco, New York, Washington, Seattle, Boston, and Los Angeles. Estimates by Harvard’s Edward Glaeser indicate that constraints on housing supply can increase prices in these markets on the order of 50%.

Teles points out that “land-use regulation has increased over the last third of a century.” He compares it to other forms of licensing and monopoly that grant incumbents and people with special knowledge, skills, or ownership with protection and advantage through regulation. It isn’t hard to see his point. What happens, usually, with more rules is the birth of a very elaborate system that can only be navigated by those with special knowledge who must be paid. Lawyers, consultants, lobbyists, and government staff are the only ones who can understand housing policy. The consumer of housing, especially one who must seek housing in a month to month format because she can’t own, doesn’t have the advantages a single-family homeowner does.

Teles points out that,

In other words, by preventing housing supply from equilibrating with housing demand, insiders in these expensive housing markets — necessarily the already wealthy — are able to use regulation to take resources from housing outsiders.

Teles article is quite good at laying out the many ways the overregulation serves people who already have theirs, the so called “one percent.” This runs counter to the ideological bent of most Seattlites who would argue that equity can only be achieved with more rules, more regulation, more fees, and more process. Teles makes it clear that those things all serve favors to people who already own their own homes. The more rules and process stymie other forms of housing, the wealthier single-family homeowners get.

While the state is sometimes the friend of those working to produce a more egalitarian society, it is just as often the tool of those who would entrench inequality.

This is what supporters of cities should be arguing; rules are often what render the ideal aspects of city life inaccessible to the poor and those with fewer resources and capital. Bashing people who are trying to meet the demand for housing over the head with the word EQUITY doesn’t help anyone get a new home. Using the word as cover for rules, regulations, fees, and taxes that bedevil the builder of housing doesn’t make that housing more accessible or expand housing choice and opportunity. Writing apologies for rent control and making bargains thar raise costs and prices won’t break the cycle of regulation, higher rents, and more regulation. On the contrary, trying to rule, regulate, and fee our way into something we can’t even really define or measure is ensuring that there won’t be any of it to measure at all, whatever we want it to be.

Thanks to City Builder Lauren Burgeson for sending me the Teles article.