Such unimaginative insults... you are quite a bore...
If honorable people are required then there was no system that was unbroken since the beginning of time. You are such an utopian... your constant atribution of tragedy to moral agency of someone else is so dangerous. You worry me, truly you do.
But, finally an example. Thanks, I guess. Though I expect you'll make yourself scarser soon enough now.
First to say, your comment about WW2 is kind of disingenuous? I mean, there was this thing called the USSR you know, and it had a bunch of countries under its sphere of influence... the Cold War was a fairly stable configuration for half a century more or less, but to imply that that balance of power stability is equivalent to no divisions among the world's anything is facepalm inducing. Unless you are the one being a sophist and excluding the communist systems from the financial elite a priori. But why would you do that? There were individuals with huge financial power there, which affected the world in many different ways.
Then to say, I offered Brexit as an example of the cracks beginning to appear. I'm not even sure the referenda result will be respected. So don't strawman my post as any kind of strong prediction that Brexit is it! For whatever meaning of it you want to ascribe.
When considering housing gluts and lack of affordable housing let us first be clear and give you the opportunity to jump in and go "no, no, that's not what I meant".
Given the context so far, here is the meaning I see you offering:
First, you are focused on the so called developed western world.
Second by affordable housing you mean something like half of current costs, or mortgages being at similar rates but lasting half the time, basically taking the purchasing power equivalent of whatever amount the average house costs, and cutting that in half to make it "affordable".
Then your thesis is: Hoarding of housing by elites - ergo, they buy houses but don't use them - is causing housing prices to go up. This is artificial demand and it therefore causes scarcity of housing. There is a contingent of potential housing buyers which are priced out of the market, and that inability to buy is dehumanizing to them.
I am referring of course to your statement which I will again reproduce in full:
"When scarcity is artificial, is it "life" that is dehumanizing, or the conditions imposed as a direct result of hoarding?" Assuming this is correct, here's the kind of things I'll go into with you to explore the topic comprehensively. Please don't back out now that we are getting somewhere ok? :)
1 - natural contexts - shortage of suitable land, physical proximity to job sites, demographic trends, basic economic resources (time, labor, material, knowledge)
2 - higher prices and hoarding - other causalities like construction standards, increasing housing size, and changing mores (family size in particular)
3 - demand causing scarcity - other causalities like price control (topic where I expect you will again realize you have been reading me carelessly - in that I will agree there are "artificial" constraints "causing" shortages, just that those artificial aspects are only the cherry on the cake of all the pre-existing natural limits)
4 - the moral angle - what makes lack of housing dehumanizing? what is illegitimate or even malicious about hoarding?
How's that for a menu?