Puttin' on the fritz: Faking housing failures to ensure NGO salaries. A walking tour

Brave a free walking tour exploring through San Francisco social movement history the following conundrum.

In the non-human natural world the world brims with biomass. You couldn't add another dollop of protoplasm per acre of any habitat and see it linger; all the life that can squeeze in is already in; evolution assures that.

But when it comes to human habitat, what do you find? A bunch of squeaming, scheming, screaming egos making a case for why they oughtn't to have to pay the full market value of their patch of earth to the rest of humanity to stay out. A plethora of "I'm a special case" special interests holler for a market rent grab. The result: sub-optimal use of human habitat with the consequence that inordinate pressure is put upon the habitat that remains. Speculative rents. Extensive use of land. Urban creep. Suburban creep. Agricultural displacement to the margin. Imposition upon wild places.

Yet rather than address that, environmental orgs and housing rights orgs and fair wages orgs and immigrant rights orgs and nativist orgs set up shop to save the panda, save the homeless, save the low-income, save the refugee, save the fatherland. As though the panda doesn't simply need humans to use human habitat optimally and leave pandas alone. As though the unhoused wouldn't sufficiently house themselves if only the landed paid the unhoused not to use the titled land. As though the low-income wouldn't have higher income if only the landowner weren't pocketing the Earth's rent the low-income pay to the land owners. As though the refugee wouldn't stay home if only the land owner weren't saying "Get off my land or I'll beat you silly." As though any speculator would come around buying US land if they had to surrender the annual market rent of that land back to the US.

NGOs exist because addressing the land question would put an end to the need for the NGOs.