Been seeing "Finland has eradicated homelesness" posts a lot from typically "socialism is when the government does stuff"-leftists or some AmeriKKKan Bernie lib and it has become such an angering thing for me. It is all neoliberal country branding.

That is all it is. Our shitty pseudo-leftist nato loving "modern left" party has gone around flexing about their progressive housing program. The party has no power, zero. It means nothing.

I work with homeless people, in Finland. Where almost all housing has been privatized. Where the state support has been cut to a level no poor person can meet. If ones rent goes over this state mandated limit, people are forced to move. This leads to movement into rural areas where there is no work or services, factually creating segregation.

If you have a mark on your credit, nobody rents to you. I spend my time trying to house these people and every time I see this meme/info floated on the internet I become more annoyed.

The next time anyone goes "oh look at that socialist finland eradicating homelessness" you can say that this neoliberal austerity hell has nothing whatsoever to do with socialism, never really did and they definitely have not eradicated anything.

  • wheresmysurplusvalue [comrade/them]
    ·
    27 days ago

    Just today I was telling an American coworker about Finland's "everyman's right" which includes the right to camp pretty much anywhere (not too close to someone's home). His response was "oh that's a thing in Oregon too", and me, being earnest, said "oh really? that's cool!" until I realized he was referring to the homeless population in Portland...

    • lilypad [she/her, undecided]
      ·
      26 days ago

      I mean, its kinda a thing on BLM land i think? But thats a far cry from allemansretten (im not familiar with the finnish equivalent)

      • GenderIsOpSec [she/her]
        ·
        26 days ago

        allemansretten

        a quick wiki search tells me this literally what we have here in finland. except we call it jokaisenoikeudet or jokamiehenoikeudet but the latter one has man in it, so it's falling out of use, apparentely.

        • NoLeftLeftWhereILive [none/use name, she/her]
          ·
          26 days ago

          It is sameish, but not quite. The "all mans rights" is in the term allemansretten, but in Sweden the rights are weaker. Iceland and Norway also have similar things. In Sweden they historically included things like a right to pick just a handful of hazelnuts if passing through and hungry.

          In Finland on the other hand forest or land was genuinely community owned/not owned by anyone before the Swedish rule mandated isojako (storskiftet). Living on the land via setting up on it from slash burning (kaskeaminen) was seen as an everyones right. Once people moved and the forest grew back, it was again open for anyone to dwell on. So "ownership" was tied to vacating a spot only and it didn't last. This is the history behind why we have the strongest most wide rights to roam to this day. The landowners/kulaks here have tried to do away with this right many times and hate it, but this is the one thing that was faced with so much opposition that they didn't dare do that.

          I personally have always thought that it is one of the material rights that explains some of the sameness myth in Finland between people as well, along with the nordic independent farmer myth. Everybody has the right to do it, so it renders the margins invisible.