I Learned Something From That Weird Ass Jacobin Article That Said Blackstone Owns 1/3 of All Houses
What draws people to communism?
Yesterday, a social media dunk-fest ensued after a hilariously wrong statistic was published in the socialist magazine Jacobin. And now, I shall stretch my hamstrings and lace up my Karl Malone signature LA Gear high tops,1 for I would like to participate in that dunk fest. Here’s the offending line, which was corrected after glass began raining down on Jacobin following a series of Darryl Dawkins-esque backboard shattering dunks:
Now: If you’re an economist, realtor, banker, teacher, firefighter, dental hygienist, beekeeper, acrobat, sushi chef, pro wrestler, astrophysicist, karate sensei, or porn star, you know that Blackstone does not own one third of US housing stock. The real number appears to be about 0.042%2, so Jacobin was off by a factor of 783. Keeping the “factor of 783” error margin constant, here are some statistics that are equivalent to the one that Jacobin saw fit to print:
I am 4,698 feet tall and weigh 64 and a half tons
The US Constitution is 184,788 years old
The MSRP for a 2025 Nissan Sentra is $16.9 million
Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis made $10.9 billion at the box office
The Baha Men have had 783 #1 hits, making them by far the most successful recording artist of all time
Perhaps I’m overconfident, but I believe I would have sniffed out any of those statistics as incorrect without having to pull the ol’ Encyclopedia Britannica off the shelf. And yet, this is the level of error that sailed past the golden retriever wearing a Che Guevara bandana that I assume serves as Jacobin’s fact checker. Of course, I’m probably not blowing any minds by pointing out that Jacobin is idiotic trash; they have long established themselves as one of the titans of reality averse pseudo-news, right up there with Newsmax and my Aunt Rachel’s Christmas newsletter. But I actually read the 2,400 words around that hilariously wrong statistic, and — to my surprise — I learned something. I didn’t become a communist, but I think I might have a better understanding of why some people are drawn to communism.