I think the parallels between an HOA and a local government are stronger then what Bryan wants to acknowledge. Indeed someone that buys into an HOA is making a voluntary choice to join and therefore submit to its rules. But this would not be the case for the buyer's child that may inherit the property later, and would be bound by the HOA…
I think the parallels between an HOA and a local government are stronger then what Bryan wants to acknowledge. Indeed someone that buys into an HOA is making a voluntary choice to join and therefore submit to its rules. But this would not be the case for the buyer's child that may inherit the property later, and would be bound by the HOA's rules as long as they want to keep being able to live where the may have always lived. This does not seem that dissimilar from being born into a small town and being required to abide by the rules of that small town local governments. Some of these local governments also resulted from people that lived in a certain area coming together in the past and deciding to have local rules.
Also, I wonder what Bryan thinks of a world where more and more new construction is made to ibe part of an HOA. My understanding is that recent data showed that 80%+ of new construction included HOAs. If we got to a world where 95% of all houses one could buy are associated with an HOA, wouldn't this be a situation where yet another level of "government" would be close to unavoidable for most people?
Also, just to add, how different it is to chose which HOA to buy into vs. chosing which town to move to in general with specific local government? My understanding is that HOAs have quite often much more intrusive rules in people's live than the typical local government.
I agree. As a practical matter, it doesn't matter to me whether the rules of a place were obtained via purely voluntary means at some point in the past. If you go back far enough, every place has a sketchy history filled with various injustices. What matters is what the rules are now. My takeaways: (a) we should all realize that there are limitations to our property rights when we buy, and (b) the real injustice comes when the rules are changed after the fact in such a way that the value or utility of your property is reduced. Libertarians seem to fail (a), thinking they somehow bought a sovereign country when they buy a house. Our system generally fails with respect to (b) in many cases. We should work to compensate people who fall victim to it.
I think the parallels between an HOA and a local government are stronger then what Bryan wants to acknowledge. Indeed someone that buys into an HOA is making a voluntary choice to join and therefore submit to its rules. But this would not be the case for the buyer's child that may inherit the property later, and would be bound by the HOA's rules as long as they want to keep being able to live where the may have always lived. This does not seem that dissimilar from being born into a small town and being required to abide by the rules of that small town local governments. Some of these local governments also resulted from people that lived in a certain area coming together in the past and deciding to have local rules.
Also, I wonder what Bryan thinks of a world where more and more new construction is made to ibe part of an HOA. My understanding is that recent data showed that 80%+ of new construction included HOAs. If we got to a world where 95% of all houses one could buy are associated with an HOA, wouldn't this be a situation where yet another level of "government" would be close to unavoidable for most people?
Also, just to add, how different it is to chose which HOA to buy into vs. chosing which town to move to in general with specific local government? My understanding is that HOAs have quite often much more intrusive rules in people's live than the typical local government.
I agree. As a practical matter, it doesn't matter to me whether the rules of a place were obtained via purely voluntary means at some point in the past. If you go back far enough, every place has a sketchy history filled with various injustices. What matters is what the rules are now. My takeaways: (a) we should all realize that there are limitations to our property rights when we buy, and (b) the real injustice comes when the rules are changed after the fact in such a way that the value or utility of your property is reduced. Libertarians seem to fail (a), thinking they somehow bought a sovereign country when they buy a house. Our system generally fails with respect to (b) in many cases. We should work to compensate people who fall victim to it.