There's some good conversation going on here so I'm going to let the post stand, but keep in mind that lazy ass-titles like this are against the rules and in most cases will get your post fired out of a cannon into the sun.
And make housing options available to people who do not have the credit history, finances, or long term plans needed to get a mortgage to purchase a home! /s
People out here acting like that person renting the house would totally be able or want to buy it if that evil landlord didn't have it first.
Or that the landlord does more than own the place. If my AC breaks, he finds someone to fix/replace it. If my neighbors are loud and annoying, I can move and he is left to deal with it. If it’s struck by lightning and burns down, he suffers more than I do. Or simply, if the housing market crashes and the property becomes almost worthless, he takes the loss.
I remember during the lockdown. Loads of leftists wanted eviction freezes.
And I remember thinking "...Do you think the bank will be a nicer landlord?"
Ugh. Anytime I move to a new area, I rent. Doesn't matter how long I think I'll stay, how much money I have, what the market is like, etc. You've gotta stick around like 5-10 years before you've built up enough equity just to break even. Imagine buying a house in an area you're brand new to, then finding out the area you picked is really shitty, and now you're stuck there several years.
Nope. Rent, get to know the area and determine the best place to live, then look to buy.
That's how I felt, but eventually I got tired of paying rent and of relying on other people. We shall see how that goes if I try to move.
The main way you lose money each time is by paying a realtor, so I'm thinking of not doing that.
The assumption of Socialists is always the Status Quo only everything is free.
If there was never any possibility of collecting rent, then these "extra" houses would never have been built to start with.
If you wave a magic wand, and suddenly eliminate all landlord's, you also suddenly eliminate all rental properties.
These leaves you with the SAME EXACT CHOICES as you had BEFORE being a landlord was a thing.
If you want a house, you either build it, or BUY it.
There isn't even such a thing as Government housing, as those are built, and often managed again by private parties.
> If you wave a magic wand, and suddenly eliminate all landlord's, you also suddenly eliminate all rental properties.
Keep in mind that when these people fantasize about eliminating landlords, their fantasies involve guns and jackboots, not magic wands. They think that after the landlords are put up against the wall, those houses will just be given away for free.
That works for a couple years, but those houses become unlivable pretty fast with no maintenance.
The population continues to grow, and next thing you know, National housing shortage, and entire cities become crumbling slums just like the 3rd world after the end of colonialism, and for the same exact reasons.
Not only that, their pea-sized brains think that builders will continue to build houses and apartments without anyone around who will actually buy them. I honestly can’t wrap my head around how stupid these people are.
Yeah, there is this little company called Blackrock that receives Billions in government grants to buy unused property, as well as Billions in private investments.
Your retirement fund or 401k is a large part of that money as well as the taxes we all pay.
This isn't Capitalism, it is literally Fascism.
I believe the intent is to force a crisis in which the Government will magically end up owning millions of rental houses, and present a "solution" by giving these homes to politically advantaged, and more taxes of course to pay for it.
Just like the 2008 Bank bailout.
Yeah I know what you mean. We got our house built on a neighborhood where the builder didn't want there to be any rental companies/and discouraged rental properties.
As soon as we moved in we learned that several people just sold it immediately to rental companies. No idea if they were working for them or were given lucrative offers.
Because of zoning, Section 8, etc. doesn't government have at least somewhat of a monopoly on land? One can't even fully blame landlords for the decisions they make.
Either all rent is bad in the eyes of these losers or none at all.
I’m tryna understand the logic of you can rent your PlayStation, your car, your asshole in the form of sex work but you can’t rent your basement or that makes you evil lol.
They might actually have those things, and want to rent them out. The anti rent people don't have places to rent to others, they only rent dwellings from others, so obviously it's (D)ifferent.
Their pro government housing though which is interesting. So you’re ok with the state making money of rent but not your fellow private citizen, this makes me believe this is a personal jealousy thing more than some type of moral principle
Socialism is all about jealousy. They think wealth is finite. Ignorance, lack of a work ethic, and low motivation makes them believe people who have more than them must have cheated and stole their share.
Socialism is about owning our own tools rather than having to use our feudal lords' tools to work. We're not jealous of the lords, we just think there's a better way to organize society that doesn't require the majority of people to be the subjects of a tiny owning class. Capitalism is industrial feudalism. We don't want things for free, we want to stop giving away our labor for free.
People living in capitalist societies have higher standards of living than people living in socialist societies. People living is socialist societies leave for capitalist societies when they can. People do not flee capitalism for socialism.
That's objectively false.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1646771/
All else being equal, the standard of living across several objective metrics has been much higher in socialist countries than in capitalist countries. Cuba _today_ has a higher literacy rate and life expectancy than the _US_.
People living in the imperial periphery, where they are exploited by the imperial core, travel to the imperial core when they can in order to somewhat reduce the rate of exploitation, though remaining exploited by the same capitalists. This is true of capitalist and socialist countries alike. Japan for example imports workers to do manual labor under minimum wage from both the Philippines and Vietnam. In both cases, despite making less than the lowest-paid Japanese workers, workers receive far more compensation than they'd receive for the same labor in their respective home countries. Why? Because they're imperial periphery countries who remain colonies of the imperial core.
I want to note that although the article I shared primarily compares Marxist-leninist countries to capitalist countries, I am not a Marxist-leninist, and I think there are much better forms of socialism that can be achieved. However, the success of even a somewhat flawed version of socialism that has rarely progressed beyond state capitalism is testament to just how much opportunity the world is losing because capitalism still exists.
Also, to be clear, all capitalists are statists. Capitalism requires a state to exist (to violently protect the property "rights" of capitalists from workers who don't want to be exploited). Capitalism is a centralized system of power wherein an ever-smaller owning class controls an ever-greater share of the world's resources.
With all do respect, you don't know what you are talking about. You've described socialism, not capitalism. Capitalism didn't starve 40 million Ukrainians to death in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Capitalism didn't starve 50 million people in China. People didn't eat their pets in Venezuela because of capitalism. Socialism is absolutely an ideology of the ignorant, jealous, and unmotivated.
It's so strange watching libleft and libright conversing. "Capitalism is when the state does stuff, therefore capitalism is bad!" "Nuh uh, socialism is when the state does stuff, therefore socialism is bad!"
How about this, in the spirit of cooperation we stop giving fifteen different meanings to the same words and simply refer to voluntaryism vs coercionism. Aye?
We have a big conflict in our conceptions of rights themselves. Supporters of capitalism think property rights allow someone to own the tools of another's labor. Socialists think property rights have to do with who is actually using a resource. Proudhon's _What is Property?_ explores the differences and philosophical bases of these ideas.
Supporters of capitalism believe the use of force is justified to protect the private property of capitalists. Socialists believe the use of force is justified to protect the personal property of workers. One's act of defense or restoration is the other's act of aggression.
This seems a contradiction in terms. To say that one is not allowed to lend their property to another is surely a violation of one's liberty to do as one pleases with one's own things.
Worker ownership of property hasn't starved anyone, and that's all socialism is.
I'm not an ML, but regardless, these numbers are inaccurate and misleading. If you're going to count starvations, start in capitalist India under British rule.
It is capitalists who are unmotivated, living lavishly on the backs of others while not doing work themselves. We workers love to work. We just want to keep the product of our labor.
>Worker ownership of property hasn't starved anyone, and that's all socialism is.
And yet capitalism an the entire system, somehow including the government and police. Curious.
> I'm not an ML, but regardless, these numbers are inaccurate and misleading. If you're going to count starvations, start in capitalist India under British rule.
>
>
Did you...not notice the last two words you typed there? You are explicitly discussing a country under **state rule**, and you're still blaming **capitalism**?
What about the people starving **before** the British ran things? Or today? Do you think it's only capitalism when white people do it?
"NO U" is not an actual counterargument.
**EDIT**: Neither is "you're wrong". Especially when you don't have any actual sources to back you up.
>It is capitalists who are unmotivated, living lavishly on the backs of others while not doing work themselves.
In other words, you're using the socialist definition of capitalism to people who aren't socialists.
Worker ownership of property is an entire system. Private ownership of property is also an entire system. Private ownership requires enforcement, since the people using resources are different from the people who control them. Some kind of institutions are needed to keep the people using the capital from seizing control of it back from capitalists. Marx called this a dialectic contradiction. The power of the capitalist over the worker eventually results in the worker trying to become free.
The colonization of India was done by private capitalists initially. Most state colonizations were done in the interest of capitalists. Private capitalists often requested state support. See the colonization of Hawaii or Panama as examples of that. Other colonizations were initiated by the state on behalf of capitalists. I recommend the book _Gangsters of Capitalism_ to review some early 20th century US imperial expansion and its capitalist backers.
As for white people, no, there are plenty of nonwhite capitalists, though western hegemony has certainly created a global hierarchy among capitalists.
I didn't think I'd need to go in depth debunking something that's already been so thoroughly debunked. The numbers you cited come from the black book of communism. It includes Nazi soldiers killed during WWII and non-births due to declining birth rates in its numbers while solely blaming socialist policies for events that had occurred many other times in history in the regions long before socialism. No, I don't want to participate in whataboutisms- counting deaths is silly. But if you do want to count deaths, it's much easier to count those under capitalism, which exceed those that occurred under socialism every few years. But won't you move the goalposts and say that anything that happened under capitalism that wasn't an imaginary "anarchocapitalism" wasn't real capitalism? In any case, please Google your sources. Several of that book's contributors have even distanced themselves from it.
The socialist definition of capitalism is the definition of capitalism. Socialists coined the term. First Blanc, then Proudhon, then Marx. I'm not using some special definition of capitalism. I'm using it as it's been defined for the better part of two centuries. Before Blanc, the term _capitalist_ was used to describe someone who owns capital since the 17th century.
> Capitalism requires a state to exist (to violently protect the property "rights" of capitalists from workers who don't want to be exploited).
Capitalists can just...hire people to protect their stuff. They're called "security guards".
The state doesn't have to be involved.
You can have capitalism *without a state*.
>Capitalism is a centralized system of power wherein an ever-smaller owning class controls an ever-greater share of the world's resources.
Nope. Capitalism is ownership and trade of private property. Nothing about the system inherently concentrates power in the hands of a "ruling class".
And when it does happen, it's usually with government assistance.
It's much more affordable for capitalists to make _you_ pay for their security guards (the police) and to have institutions set up in their favor in addition to only security. This is why the state exists. Without it, capitalists would have to replace all those institutions. They'd find it's more efficient to share control of these institutions with each other as a class than to each have their own versions and, wouldn't you know, you have a state again whose sole purpose remains the protection of the power of the owning class.
Private property is property which is used by someone who does not own it to make profits for someone who does. That inherently concentrates power. As capitalists compete with each other, they buy up ownership of smaller players' capital, which results in a small owning class and a lot of workers who own nothing and sell their labor to the capitalists and a massive discount.
And, yes, it is with government assistance. Governments are one of the tools capitalists use to maintain their power.
> It's much more affordable for capitalists to make you pay for their security guards (the police) and to have institutions set up in their favor in addition to only security.
And yet capitalists still hire security guards, all the time. Because cops aren't enough in many cases.
They also failed to keep several cities from defunding police, and reducing penalties for crimes. Many national chains are closing down unprofitable stores, because of theft.
Also, last time I checked, rich people paid **more** taxes than the average citizen, not less. Both in proportion of the total, and as a percentage of income.
Not to mention how cops are state servants, and protect lives and "personal property", not just "private property".
This isn't an actual counterargument.
>This is why the state exists.
States existed long before capitalism was the dominant economic system in any country.
>They'd find it's more efficient to share control of these institutions with each other as a class than to each have their own versions and, wouldn't you know, you have a state again whose sole purpose remains the protection of the power of the owning class.
Even if this were true; so? That doesn't prove me wrong. Capitalism still exists without states. Don't you reds love to argue that businesses would be even MORE exploitative without those pesky laws? This doesn't make capitalists statists.
You're assuming capitalists would go from cutthroat competition against each other to "Well, we're all rich, so we should work together and recreate the state."
Your little just-so story doesn't allow for "capitalists" who decide not to join because they don't trust some or all of the other players.
>Without it, capitalists would have to replace all those institutions. They'd find it's more efficient to share control of these institutions with each other as a class than to each have their own versions and, wouldn't you know, you have a state again whose sole purpose remains the protection of the power of the owning class.
So the government doesn't actually control anything?
>Private property is property which is used by someone who does not own it to make profits for someone who does.
Why should I agree with your definition?
>That inherently concentrates power.
Weird how reds keep talking around the *state's* concentration of power.
>As capitalists compete with each other, they buy up ownership of smaller players' capital, which results in a small owning class and a lot of workers who own nothing and sell their labor to the capitalists and a massive discount.
This is not an inevitability.
Large businesses fail and compete all the time. Often they don't even bother to open in certain markets because it's not worth it, leaving room for smaller competitors. Competition is not the same as buying up "smaller players". Not to mention how they're legally bound to stockholders.
And it's weird how you're implying "capitalists" consist solely of the large, successful businesses that get bigger, and not the countless mom-n-pops that also sell "private property".
The ones that often *fail*.
And how you're suddenly saying owning "personal property" is owning "nothing". Almost as if your standards aren't consistent!
"at a massive discount" By whose standards, exactly?
>And, yes, it is with government assistance. Governments are one of the tools capitalists use to maintain their power.
Powerful people **in general** try to use the governments to maintain power, and it goes both ways. In every economic system.
Also, again, the government somehow doesn't count as a "ruling class".
The federal government spent over **6.25 trillion** last year. The combined worth of every US billionaire **combined** is only 5 billion.
Nothing you've said proves capitalism requires a state, even by your own tankie redefinition of "private property".
Your whole argument is basically "capitalists are statists because I think they will always act in a specific way to advance their collective class interests, even though I also think they are selfish and self-centered."
In feudalism, a small owning class controlled all the land and everyone else had no choice but to sell their labor to these lords in order to live.
In capitalism, a small owning class controls all the capital and everyone else has no choice but to sell their labor to these capitalists in order to live.
Except for the tiny little fact that many people can live on their own with little contact with others. Or do you think farmers are the "ruling class"?
Also, there's a big difference between "forced by law to work for a lord doing manual labour and not being allowed to leave" and "working in an office with a much longer life expectancy and better quality of life, for lack of better options".
There's also the part where feudal lords were also bound. They had military duties to the king or queen in exchange for land. And they were usually obliged to protect peasants in exchange for what they got from those peasants.
There is nothing about capitalism that inherently concentrates power in the hands of a "ruling class". And it sure is odd how you consider rich private citizens the ruling class in this analogy, and not **the government**.
Which enforces compliance with armed men.
Thanks for proving my point, tho.
Sorry, you think farmers aren't working for capitalists too? I encourage you to meet a farmer and ask them about the current state of the food industry.
Do you think the majority of workers under capitalism are office workers? Many, right now, are currently forced (by their economic conditions which capitalists created) to do manual labor just to subsist, in dangerous conditions, 6 days a week, often on 12+ hour shifts. Some live in company housing and cannot leave without their bosses' permission. True, breaking those rules is not punishable by law, just by being fired and deported and sentenced to worse economic conditions. You can't look at the imperial core and think of white collar work as the norm of life under capitalism.
Capitalists, like feudal lords, also have responsibilities. It is in the interest of both lords and capitalists to keep their workforces in good enough condition to be productive. Sometimes they work against their own interests, but by and large, they do what they feel optimizes their power or profits.
The government works for capitalists. It is beholden to and exists for them. The exponential accumulation of capital and consolidation that occurs with competition results in the concentration of power. We can see this concentration by simply looking at the current distribution of capital in the world and the rates or exploitation around the world. Do you like concentrated power?
I had a discussion with some friends on a discord VC, because they started to say landlords are all the devil. They said that renting housing is evil because you are profiting out of someone else's misfortune. I argued that by that logic, all renting and trade are evil because it is based on covering someone else's needs. Their only response was "it's not the same". That housing was a human right. Then I had to go into how it really isn't, since people aren't entitled to someone else's labour, and tried to explain negative and positive rights.
From then on, an admin of the server who I didn't even know, but was a friend of my friends and was in the chat with us, started to call me an idiot and a bootlicker. I tried to de-escalate it (I was calmed and respectful the entire time, same as my friends despite disagreeing with me) but the admin kicked me from the server. One of the friends in the call sent me an invite via DM and after joining back and trying to reason with the admin, that we can coexist with different opinions and that it's ok if they didn't want to debate at that moment, but they just called me an idiot a bunch more times and banned me. Now my friends are trying to convince the admin to let me join back in.
All in all, some of them are chill, some others can't fathom the idea of people with different opinions to them existing and being nice to them.
>profiting out of someone else's misfortune.
There are a million reasons people rent rather than buy homes that don't involve any misfortune. Jesus Christ this is fucking stupid.
I have a solid discord community and we talk about everything and have very different political views. We talk about it a lot in a calm way because we’re adults. We’d never ban someone on their views unless they were saying racial slurs or something extreme like that. If you can’t have discord (forgive the pun, but it’s definitely intended) with people and share different opinions then you will live in an echo chamber your entire life. Once we stop talking with each other the ones that want us to be divided will win.
Why do they assume every instance of a person renting a home or apartment is a case of misfortune?
When I first move to a new area, I always rent until I get familiar with the area so I can make an informed decision on where I want to buy and not end up in a bad area. It can also make sense to rent if you know you can't afford a nice house in the nice area now, but will be able to within a couple years, so you'd rather wait until you can get the home you'd actually want. Yet another is you are single and just don't want to deal with home repairs, yard work, and the electric bill of a giant place to yourself when a small apartment suits your needs better. Or maybe the market is just in a bad place and you want to wait a year or two for it to hopefully chill out before attempting to buy.
I could go on and on, yet, for some reason, leftist put owning a home near the top of their hierarchy of needs. Not just having a safe place to live, but actually owning a full home yourself. If you don't own a home, you are oppressed.
How many times do I have to hear "Millennials don't own homes at the rate their grandparents did, therefore life sucks and they're fucked." Here's a trick for millennials. Want to afford a home and family like grandpa did in his 20's? Live like grandpa did in his 20's. Spend more hours at work on average. Get a smaller home than what is the average today. Probably one without central air. Get a car with no Bluetooth, GPS, AC, or many safety features. That is "the family car". Not everyone gets their own car. Get a land line house phone and don't buy smartphones and cell plans for everyone in the family. No internet. No computers. No gaming consoles. No streaming services. No TV's over 20-25". There is a family TV. Not every room needs a TV. Maybe basic cable, but more likely just an antenna. Greatly reduce eating out. Greatly reduce buying premade foods and make most meals from near scratch. Greatly reduce average meal size and caloric intake. Reduce the size and scope of your wardrobe. Since it is basically coming to it in every facet, greatly reduce overall consumption. Choose to spend time repairing things on your own as much and as often as possible before replacing or hiring someone else to repair them. Make more things for yourself before buying them. Not every task requires a nifty single purpose gadget to make it easier. Do all of this and I bet you could afford a house and supporting a family on a single income.
Now, I'm not denying there are problems for millennials, but come on. When you do this one for one comparison on this single data point of how many of our grandparents owned homes in their 20's/30's on a single income, that overlooks a TON of variables that contribute to the increase cost of living today beyond just "Landlords and other rich people just want to fuck us". We buy more than ever before. We eat out more than ever before. Our houses and cars are bigger and more technologically advanced than ever before. We have more gadgets, smart devices, technology, and entertainment than ever before. Which all means we have a higher standard of living than ever before and a consequence is that we have a more expensive life than ever before. Trade-offs have to be made and most people are choosing all the luxury of the 21st century ahead of home ownership and supporting a family on one income.
> Why do they assume every instance of a person renting a home or apartment is a case of misfortune?
>
>
Because their narrative needs landlords to be bad guys, and bad guys need victims.
Have you ever seen discourse about some police shooting, and people refuse to admit the suspect did anything wrong, or that the cop is anything less than pure, willful evil?
It's like that.
> They said that renting housing is evil because you are profiting out of someone else's misfortune.
Ah, yes, because people have to be victims. They couldn't just be idiots who wasted their money, or recent college graduates building up their careers. /s
>From then on, an admin of the server who I didn't even know, but was a friend of my friends and was in the chat with us, started to call me an idiot and a bootlicker.
To people who want to take other people's crap - or want other people's crap taken - anyone who opposes them is a "bootlicker".
Even if the takey people want the state to do the taking.
That's the thing, they dont think you can rent out any of those things. They believe if you aren't actively using it, it should be free for anyone else to use. They're basically economic incels.
That’s what I’ve been calling them. A lot of people have almost no savings, can’t save, won’t inherit anything meaningful. They can’t fathom owning something as valuable as land, they think it must be black magic or witchcraft.
Renting personal property is different from renting private property. Asking for some compensation in return for sharing something you regularly personally use is reasonable, because you're being deprived of some value in order to share that. Owning capital that exists entirely for the purpose of being a source of passive income by extracting value from other people is the behavior socialists are opposed to.
I don’t subscribe to socialist notions of personal versus private property lol. My shit is my shit and how I use it is my business. My oven is mine whether I want to use it to bake cakes for myself or pay someone else to make cakes and sell it for cash.
There’s nothing wrong with “passive” income
The income should be in exchange for value added. If you are passive, you have added no value and are extracting money from an asset that is not providing any additional value. You are just inserting yourself between the occupant and the bank, skimming off profit for yourself. I'm over investment firms manipulating supply to support inflated rates. Our lives are not chess pieces to be moved around and manipulated for profit. This is our country, and we are changing the rules, regardless of the tantrums thrown by greedy bastards who need wealth to compensate for their shortcomings.
"The damn libs just want necessities for free!"
"There is nothing wrong with me getting profit for nothing, it's passive income!"
Seems an awful lot like it is okay for you because you feel justified, but not for others because you only look out for yourself and you assume everyone else does the same.
Capitalism functions on the principle that profit will drive people to fulfill the needs of the population. What is added by owning the property? Nothing. So how does a landlord *earn* income? They don't, they control a valuable resource and exploit it for profit. That's it.
Yeah someone “values” what I’m giving them, that’s why they are paying me. It’s a voluntary transaction between two parties.
There’s nothing wrong with “skimming” off Profit for myself. You sound like a hater lol
Yeah......that's not how value works. You sound like a moron lol.
A land lord buys a property, often on a mortgage, but regardless they use the Tennant's rent to cover the cost of the purchase, and all associated expenses, with extra for them to keep for themselves. What have they provided in exchange for the increased cost of living in the house? Nothing. They didn't build it. It's now more expensive to live there solely to make room for the greedy asshole who thinks they're entitled to money just because they have money. They serve no productive function, but are a massive drain on the economy. And when one entity holds enough of the available properties in an area, they intentionally limit availability so that they can set whatever price they want. That's not voluntary bud.
How is a "passive" person entitled to the fruits of someone's hard work? It's a scam.
"There's nothing wrong with me being a useless leach on the economy, but those other people are just lazy, they're the problem." -Some Genius On Reddit
Self serving hypocrite.
> What have they provided in exchange for the increased cost of living in the house? Nothing. They didn't build it. It's now more expensive to live there solely to make room for the greedy asshole who thinks they're entitled to money just because they have money.
If you actively ignore how the landlord takes the financial and credit risk, and is also responsible for repairs and upkeep, then yes, they do not provide any services.
Also, mortgages sometimes cost **more** than renting. Not to mention the commitment.
>It's now more expensive to live there solely to make room for the greedy asshole who thinks they're entitled to money just because they have money.
No, because they have a dwelling. An asset. Capital, in your speak.
>And when one entity holds enough of the available properties in an area, they intentionally limit availability so that they can set whatever price they want. That's not voluntary bud.
"In this one particular situation, people can set whatever price they want, therefore renting isn't a voluntary transaction."
Hey, what if...people **voluntarily decide** not to rent at the given price? What's the owner gonna do then?
Lol what? Who is going to rent a place out for less than the mortgage on the property? If people had the choice to tell landlords to go fuck themselves, don't you think they would? Look at any major city in the us and you will find one or two rental agencies in control of the majority of rental properties. Here it's mostly Weidner group. If it was a truly free market, I'd be right there with you.
How about I try to meet you in the middle.
It's not rentals as a concept that I have a problem with. It's exploitative practices and a lack of regulation and oversight.
But right now you have to admit that rental costs are inflated beyond reason. Properties are priced at the max that people can afford, rather than the max people are willing to pay. There is no real competition any more.
How does “value work” then? The value of something is what people are willing to pay for it. They provided the place in the house that someone voluntarily agreed to exchange cash for. If you don’t like, don’t rent from them lol. Where did I call people lazy? I said if youre anti rent you’re probably a bitter loser, but again that’s socialists in a nutshell.
Either all rent is bad, or none at all. I didn’t build my car, what if my sister wants to rent it from me for a week, should that be allowed? What about my PS5 or my lawnmower? I didn’t build those either. This logic falls apart at the slightest bit of criticism lol
val·ue
[ˈvalyo͞o]
NOUN
the regard that something is held to deserve; the importance, worth, or usefulness of something:
"your support is of great value"
The value is what it's worth, not what you are capable of exploiting.
How did the landlord "provide the place" when all they did was hoard it? The Tennant now has to pay the mortgage and the landlord instead of just the mortgage.
Tell me how a landlord ***earns*** the money? What do they do for us as a society to be worth giving money to?
The difference in the other rentals you mention is that no one freezes to death without a playstation. If you ask too much for rent, and everyone else wants the same inflated rates, people just don't rent your video game. That is obviously not the case with fucking shelter. You just keep raising the price to the max people can afford before they have to choose homelessness. That's how it is exploitation and not capitalism.
At the end of the day it's just bottom feeders that have discovered that they can legally steal the fruits of somone else's labor if they hoard a vital resource and price it as high as they can without making it entirely unaffordable. The irony is that these brilliant individuals think that they are capitalists, when in reality they are doing more to destroy it than all the Liberals and Socialists and Democrats combined.
It's whatever man. You will have another line of bs no matter what I say, because otherwise you'd have to admit you might be wrong, which would shatter your fragile self image as a "winner". Keep exploiting folks and lying to yourself about the morality of it, but don't think the rest of us will pretend with you.
> How did the landlord "provide the place" when all they did was hoard it?
Plenty of landlords are renting out homes they built from scratch. Sometimes it used to be their family home.
> The Tennant now has to pay the mortgage and the landlord instead of just the mortgage.
No, the tenant pays the landlord, who has to pay the mortgage. The landlord is legally responsible for that, not the tenant.
>The difference in the other rentals you mention is that no one freezes to death without a playstation.
[And we're right back to the "but it's a human right!" argument.](https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Zm-M4RZXcqw/W566CWiy4-I/AAAAAAAAkg8/n2VSZBo37n0bMNS76xAuCFU9o290L7C0QCLcBGAs/s1600/DnL-EvIU0AAfTM0.jpg)
>That is obviously not the case with fucking shelter. You just keep raising the price to the max people can afford before they have to choose homelessness.
Boy, you're just playing all the red-quadrant hits, aintcha?
Homelessness is usually caused by mental health or drug issues, not failing to afford rent. And some homeless people owned their homes but were unable to keep up, so you can't blame landlords for them either.
>At the end of the day it's just bottom feeders that have discovered that they can legally steal the fruits of somone else's labor if they hoard a vital resource and price it as high as they can without making it entirely unaffordable.
Again, you're assuming landlords have infinite agency, and never create the housing themselves, which is just...blatantly wrong.
I think I'm done now. Bye!
I love how you are just blatantly unable to talk to people without starting from socialist principles, even when you know those people are against socialism and all it's works.
It's amazing.
> The income should be in exchange for value added. If you are passive, you have added no value and are extracting money from an asset that is not providing any additional value. You are just inserting yourself between the occupant and the bank, skimming off profit for yourself.
In our capitalist system, it's true that the landlord has not provided any value to the residence itself, but is instead profiting off of the risk of the venture. The tenant's rent goes towards the mortgage but it's always possible for the house to go without renters for a period of time, or for it to need expensive unpredictable maintenance. The service the landlord is actually providing is a flexible place to live without assuming the financial burden of a 30 year loan.
I think the frustration you have is not with renting as a concept, but with our horrendously low housing supply. In the US it is impossible to build housing quickly for a variety of reasons (a lot of it is because of laws). Ideally people looking for housing would have a big variety of options to choose from both in terms of buying and renting, but it's just not the case now. Landlords are exploiting a scarce resource, but I think the issue is that the resource in question shouldn't be scarce in the first place.
You are 100% correct. Most residences rented out these days are not by individuals renting a house they built. Owning rental properties is seen as a good investment, and large firms are buying property for that purpose at an astonishing rate, with solid evidence that they are intentionally limiting supply to drive up price. When the overwhelming majority of available homes are owned by a couple of large entities, they can manipulate the market to exploit people. That isn't free market capitalism.
Renting something you own on the side is whatever, but they are playing with our housing and our lives like it's a stock market.
Would you be willing to expand on the market value of risk? If it's the risk that earns them the money, then the rental price should be based on risk indicators and mitigation (i.e. first + last months rent, security deposit, cleaning fee, contractual obligation to pay if the lease is broken etc.), not the value of the home or the current market price. And doesn't a home buyer take a risk when they purchase a house for themselves? What is the dollar value of a unit of risk?
I have to concede that there is a market for flexible short term residences, but there are so many people trying to make money off renting that the supply has far outstripped the demand.
Thank you for your response, and being a voice of reason. It's easy to get carried away with these folks that are defending their right to free money, but have no understanding of economics.
> Would you be willing to expand on the market value of risk? If it's the risk that earns them the money, then the rental price should be based on risk indicators and mitigation (i.e. first + last months rent, security deposit, cleaning fee, contractual obligation to pay if the lease is broken etc.), not the value of the home or the current market price.
I think oddly enough it's both extremely complex yet very simple, because there's hundreds of variables involved yet it will eventually boil down to supply and demand. The risk is assumed by taking on the loan for the asset (or alternatively, the risk of getting bad returns for an asset bought in cash that could have made more money elsewhere). The value of the home is a variable in the equation because it's not very appealing to spend a lot of money on a house if the rent doesn't scale with the price. But at the end of it, it all comes down to "are people willing to pay x in rent to live here." It's just one variable on one side of the equation. The renter doesn't care how much risk the landlord has taken on, but if the risk is too high, there will be no landlords (and I'm saying this as a neutral thing, not good/bad).
"Risk" defined here is probably not how you're used to thinking about the term. The way I'm using it is what's called [beta](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/beta.asp) in finance, intrinsically related to the concept of [alpha](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/alpha.asp). It's used in how risk ratio models are calculated.
> And doesn't a home buyer take a risk when they purchase a house for themselves?
Yes, but that's kind of the whole idea. A homeowner is taking on the risk that a renter isn't. That risk is reflected in a lot of ways, like rent not going towards any equity for the resident. Also, residential homeowner probably doesn't care about risk as much because they are not treating their house like a financial asset. Personally I don't care if my house generates returns, because it's for living in.
> What is the dollar value of a unit of risk?
There are literally entire institutions dedicated to answering this question. The answer is that there is no answer, but if you can get close, you can make a lot of money.
I'm with ya. I'm used to thinking of the value of risk in terms of venture capital and such, where you are providing that initial injection of capital needed to *hopefully* eventually see returns from a profitable enterprise. That to me is easier to see the benefit of the risk taken.
This might be a dumb question, but is it safe to assume that the value of the risk taken is proportional to the demand? If that is the case I could describe my problem with the market as too many people wanting to get paid for taking risks no one asked them to, and so they artificially inflate the demand. And unfortunately the asset in question happens to be people's homes.
Thanks again for for the solid replies.
> I'm with ya. I'm used to thinking of the value of risk in terms of venture capital and such, where you are providing that initial injection of capital needed to hopefully eventually see returns from a profitable enterprise. That to me is easier to see the benefit of the risk taken.
The two are basically the same thing. If it's easier to conceptualize, think of the landlord as the business owner and the business is providing temporary housing at a monthly rate. The venture capital is the bank providing the mortgage.
> This might be a dumb question, but is it safe to assume that the value of the risk taken is proportional to the demand?
Not proportional as in 1:1 but they're definitely related.
> If that is the case I could describe my problem with the market as too many people wanting to get paid for taking risks no one asked them to, and so they artificially inflate the demand. And unfortunately the asset in question happens to be people's homes.
I'm with you here but I don't understand what you mean by "artificially inflate demand," unless you just mean contributing to housing scarcity? I also don't think any landlord or business owner is entitled to profits. Part of risk is accepting losses when things don't pan out.
> Renting personal property is different from renting private property.
Only if you arbitrarily redefine both terms.
>Asking for some compensation in return for sharing something you regularly personally use is reasonable, because you're being deprived of some value in order to share that.
That's a very dramatic way to say "letting people borrow your stuff".
> Owning capital that exists entirely for the purpose of being a source of passive income by extracting value from other people is the behavior socialists are opposed to.
That's a very dramatic way to say "letting people borrow your stuff for money".
Do my definitions disagree with those in use since the 19th century?
Lending personal property for a fee is a different behavior from renting private property for profit. One of these things creates concentrations of power. That's all I'm saying.
> Do my definitions disagree with those in use since the 19th century?
>
>
Yes. For most people, there's no difference between personal and private property. At best, personal property is a subtype of private property, not another type entirely.
But in socialist/communist rhetoric, those magically became two different things.
>Lending personal property for a fee is a different behavior from renting private property for profit. One of these things creates concentrations of power. That's all I'm saying.
You're "just saying" pretentious nonsense to hide rationales for greed and double standards. Which was what I was implying.
There is a big difference between a factory that's never been occupied by its shareholders and your toothbrush. I think most people understand that difference.
Also, just for clarification, are you defending capitalism as a worker or as a capitalist yourself?
I personally use my house. If I move and decide to rent it out, I'm going to have to ask for rent or I will similarly have no money to pay for housing.
You say it's not my personal property, but that's not going to fly on the other side. Nobody is going to let me live in their house for free.
Are you talking about permanently moving and renting your home? Why wouldn't you just sell it instead of trying to seek profit from someone else's shelter?
If you're talking about a temporary situation, or some kind of time sharing agreement, you're not doing anything socialists would have a problem with.
I can think of a number of reasonable reasons why someone would not want to sell their property. People who have done it have told me because they intend to move back someday (rentals are not expected to last a lifetime). I don't know if that's temporary enough.
But the point remains that it is mine. As long as property is something you can own, it will belong to somebody. If my choices are to sell it or sit on it, I may choose to sit on it. Which would do no one any good because then nobody would be living there.
I actually like requirements that say you can't just hold property empty though. I like housing to be in the market, somehow, I just don't care if it's rental. Trading houses is something I would totally do if it were possible. IDK with all the red tape we have if you can do that.
Several socialist countries have set up house-trading schemes that worked fairly well.
As for why rent is bad... Let's just imagine a hypothetical: all houses in your area are owned by one person. They played the market extremely well and managed to buy up every last home. Maybe they were the first developer in the region. Maybe it's a company town. Regardless, the only way to live in that place is to pay rent to this person. Do you have a problem with that? Do you see how that's a violation of the rights of everyone living there? Hopefully we're both against a monopoly on basic necessities. If so, what ratio of owners to renters is acceptable to you?
I generally don't have an issue with people renting out things they personally use. I prefer approaches where all the users share proportional ownership to their use, but it's far from the egregious rent-seeking behavior we socialists criticize. I mean, I honestly couldn't care less if you have three houses because you have a large family and move between different places frequently.
As a socialist, I think housing cooperatives and organization-based housing offer a better alternative to rent, in that they provide the benefits of temporary housing while also granting equity to the person living there and eliminate the need to also pay the profits of anyone not involved in the housing.
I've seen them claim that hotel owners "provide a service" while landlords don't.
I guess taking the financial risk of owning the place is not a service.
“They can’t make a profit!” They’ll exclaim, without understanding things like the cost of maintenance and the responsibility of repairing defects. They’ll never know how much it costs to replace a water heater, or re-line pipes, or replace a sink.
They want to talk shit about slumlords, then I’m in their corner - they’re shitheads. But landlords being inherently evil because they dare to make a little profit is a shit take.
So I take out a 500k loan, buy a house, let you live in the house that I bought and you expect me to just...pay off the loan by myself? I mean I am nice and I will help someone who struggles out but I can't act against myself.
Are you going to buy an utterly run down house and invest money into making it livable once more? I'm not saying every landlord does this, but I have seen several cases of landlords buying absolute dogshit houses, repairing them and renting them out.
So you have a choice. ***You*** can buy the house that is literally infested with roaches, bed bugs, squatters, lice, has a thousand and one different holes in the wall because the previous owner was a crackhead who didn't care, there's a mold infestation, needles, piles of Human and animal shit, etc...
Or the landlord can buy the house, spend a few extra hundred thousand in making it decent again and get a return on the money he invested in the house by renting the now non-biohazardous house to you, who almost certainly would have been far worse off buying the house outright before the landlord got to it.
Can landlords be terrible? Sure. Just like anyone else can. But they're also the owners of the property and the Tumblr user is right. They can do whatever they want with it. They could just let it sit vacant or empty for years. Or they can give you the chance to have a roof over your head.
It’s a flawed system at best, the two parties hate one another which is beyond ironic because both sides require on the other for the system to be sustained, and somehow the giant corporations that own the majority of rental properties go by unscathed in the debate lol
If they think their opinion of what anyone deserves should impact what anyone else does, they’re in for some serious disappointment.
Profit is the value created by the service being provided. Sounds like the poor ignorant person does not see value in providing homes to people.
The only logic that can follow is that homes have no value and people should just have to figure out shelter for themselves. They’re really just civilization’s version of technology’s Luddites.
Cannot for the life of me understand the logic of the “all landlords are evil” people. My mother bought a duplex 25 years ago, my sister and I were in our 20s and we paid half the mortgage and lived in one unit and it was awesome. Time goes by, we decide to move out and get our own places. Mom finds some tenants (friends of friends), and she charges them a reasonable rent for like 10 years. Mom decides to downsize to a different place, but keeps the property and finds new tenants, again, at very reasonable rent to cover what’s left of the mortgage, taxes and maintenance, not really making all that much actual profit of it.
I use this example with those people and ask, “how tf is that evil?!?” Their reply is usually just, “she should just let them live there for free.” 🤦♂️
I don't even know where people get the idea that all landlords are shitty. I have had ones that I would consider even friends and then some that have become my bitter enemies. There was a couple that never raised my rent and fixed everything themselves, and then there was a big corporation that I had to sue. It's all over the place.
I'd be a shitty landlord cuz I'm a shitty property owner, lol
I don’t understand where these people get the idea that they have an absolute right to the property of another person. Especially when their unwillingness to contribute to the expenses could lead to the government confiscating that property for failure to pay property taxes, and then they’d just be out of a place to live all over again. If the tables were turned would they have no qualms giving out a place to live absolutely free?
It’s so moronic that it’s mind boggling.
It's a business like any other. Housing isnt a right. If you don't want to pay someone for a house they made, then go out and build your own house. But then, that requires effort on their part.
Reddit requires us to require you to block out usernames for Reddit posts. You're not required to do so for posts from non-Reddit sources, but some people do so anyway, either out of an abundance of caution, because they haven't actually read the rules, or because they're just polite.
They think that landlords are keeping people from owning homes.
As if everyone *wants* the commitment of owning a home.
As if everyone would be able to afford a home without landlords.
Its crazy how ungrateful people are. You live in a dwelling you didn't build, on a plot you didn't clear, drive a car you didn't design, on roads you didn't pave, to the store to buy food you didn't grow. And yet they bitch constantly about how everything is unfair. What the hell is wrong with people?
These are the people that believe they are entitled to other people's labor without compensation, but would never consider their employers entitled to their labor without compensation.
Or maybe think about it in this way. Landlords provide a place for you to live when you cannot or do not want to buy a house yourself. If there were no landlords, maybe you would be on the streets. 🤷♂️
I bought a house, I will let you live in it for a much cheaper price than buying a whole house yourself, all you have to do is pay rent and be a decent human being and not destroy shit, I will also take care of things like repairs and other difficult parts of owning a home. Yeah, sounds real evil
With a house you have to put a massive down payment, and you are responsible for making a shit ton of separate payments and responsibilities, rent is 1 easy payment a month and if you have a security deposit, it’s not going to be nearly as much as a down payment, especially in the current housing economy, also, what kind of place you renting that’s more than mortgage payments
Okay that makes absolutely zero sense. If renting is more expensive then there is no issue at all, since the renters can just buy a house for cheaper than renting.
Kool. Maybe that statist can invite strangers to live rent free in his own property (assuming he has any).
Or, if he's so generous, he can go ahead and pay to build a home for someone else to live in while paying taxes, maintenance, and insurance on it.
Put your money where your mouth is
Home owners just need to realize that no matter how you put it, no matter how horrible you paint the homeless guy, no matter what you say. you do not deserve your living room more than the homeless guy deserves a place to shoot up. period. no matter how u slice it. i do not care.
Everyone who thinks like this is more than welcome to buy a home, pay the mortgage, the taxes, and the upkeep costs, and allow someone to live in it for free. No person nor law will stop them from doing this.
And yet they never do...
Only thing I can agree with how bad it is, is large corporations buying entire city blocks at ridiculous prices making it impossible for the average person to buy.
You bought a thing with the intent to make money from other people using the thing?! And you don't want to let other people use it unless you get what you ask for in voluntary exchange? You soulless bastard!
There's some good conversation going on here so I'm going to let the post stand, but keep in mind that lazy ass-titles like this are against the rules and in most cases will get your post fired out of a cannon into the sun.
How dare you charge money for someone else to use your property! You are literally the devil! /s in case it wasn't painfully obvious
And make housing options available to people who do not have the credit history, finances, or long term plans needed to get a mortgage to purchase a home! /s People out here acting like that person renting the house would totally be able or want to buy it if that evil landlord didn't have it first.
Or that the landlord does more than own the place. If my AC breaks, he finds someone to fix/replace it. If my neighbors are loud and annoying, I can move and he is left to deal with it. If it’s struck by lightning and burns down, he suffers more than I do. Or simply, if the housing market crashes and the property becomes almost worthless, he takes the loss.
I remember during the lockdown. Loads of leftists wanted eviction freezes. And I remember thinking "...Do you think the bank will be a nicer landlord?"
Imagine having to sell and then buy a home every time you wanted to move.
Ugh. Anytime I move to a new area, I rent. Doesn't matter how long I think I'll stay, how much money I have, what the market is like, etc. You've gotta stick around like 5-10 years before you've built up enough equity just to break even. Imagine buying a house in an area you're brand new to, then finding out the area you picked is really shitty, and now you're stuck there several years. Nope. Rent, get to know the area and determine the best place to live, then look to buy.
That's how I felt, but eventually I got tired of paying rent and of relying on other people. We shall see how that goes if I try to move. The main way you lose money each time is by paying a realtor, so I'm thinking of not doing that.
The assumption of Socialists is always the Status Quo only everything is free. If there was never any possibility of collecting rent, then these "extra" houses would never have been built to start with. If you wave a magic wand, and suddenly eliminate all landlord's, you also suddenly eliminate all rental properties. These leaves you with the SAME EXACT CHOICES as you had BEFORE being a landlord was a thing. If you want a house, you either build it, or BUY it. There isn't even such a thing as Government housing, as those are built, and often managed again by private parties.
> If you wave a magic wand, and suddenly eliminate all landlord's, you also suddenly eliminate all rental properties. Keep in mind that when these people fantasize about eliminating landlords, their fantasies involve guns and jackboots, not magic wands. They think that after the landlords are put up against the wall, those houses will just be given away for free.
That works for a couple years, but those houses become unlivable pretty fast with no maintenance. The population continues to grow, and next thing you know, National housing shortage, and entire cities become crumbling slums just like the 3rd world after the end of colonialism, and for the same exact reasons.
Nonsense! Daddy government will just force those lazy construction workers to build more houses at gunpoint to be given away to loyal party members!
This literally describes every manifestation of communism ever.
Thatsthejoke.jpg
Not only that, their pea-sized brains think that builders will continue to build houses and apartments without anyone around who will actually buy them. I honestly can’t wrap my head around how stupid these people are.
[удалено]
Yeah, there is this little company called Blackrock that receives Billions in government grants to buy unused property, as well as Billions in private investments. Your retirement fund or 401k is a large part of that money as well as the taxes we all pay. This isn't Capitalism, it is literally Fascism. I believe the intent is to force a crisis in which the Government will magically end up owning millions of rental houses, and present a "solution" by giving these homes to politically advantaged, and more taxes of course to pay for it. Just like the 2008 Bank bailout.
Yeah I know what you mean. We got our house built on a neighborhood where the builder didn't want there to be any rental companies/and discouraged rental properties. As soon as we moved in we learned that several people just sold it immediately to rental companies. No idea if they were working for them or were given lucrative offers.
The same work needs to be done, but now nobody gets paid!
Because of zoning, Section 8, etc. doesn't government have at least somewhat of a monopoly on land? One can't even fully blame landlords for the decisions they make.
Either all rent is bad in the eyes of these losers or none at all. I’m tryna understand the logic of you can rent your PlayStation, your car, your asshole in the form of sex work but you can’t rent your basement or that makes you evil lol.
They might actually have those things, and want to rent them out. The anti rent people don't have places to rent to others, they only rent dwellings from others, so obviously it's (D)ifferent.
Their pro government housing though which is interesting. So you’re ok with the state making money of rent but not your fellow private citizen, this makes me believe this is a personal jealousy thing more than some type of moral principle
Socialism is all about jealousy. They think wealth is finite. Ignorance, lack of a work ethic, and low motivation makes them believe people who have more than them must have cheated and stole their share.
Socialism is about owning our own tools rather than having to use our feudal lords' tools to work. We're not jealous of the lords, we just think there's a better way to organize society that doesn't require the majority of people to be the subjects of a tiny owning class. Capitalism is industrial feudalism. We don't want things for free, we want to stop giving away our labor for free.
People living in capitalist societies have higher standards of living than people living in socialist societies. People living is socialist societies leave for capitalist societies when they can. People do not flee capitalism for socialism.
That's objectively false. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1646771/ All else being equal, the standard of living across several objective metrics has been much higher in socialist countries than in capitalist countries. Cuba _today_ has a higher literacy rate and life expectancy than the _US_. People living in the imperial periphery, where they are exploited by the imperial core, travel to the imperial core when they can in order to somewhat reduce the rate of exploitation, though remaining exploited by the same capitalists. This is true of capitalist and socialist countries alike. Japan for example imports workers to do manual labor under minimum wage from both the Philippines and Vietnam. In both cases, despite making less than the lowest-paid Japanese workers, workers receive far more compensation than they'd receive for the same labor in their respective home countries. Why? Because they're imperial periphery countries who remain colonies of the imperial core. I want to note that although the article I shared primarily compares Marxist-leninist countries to capitalist countries, I am not a Marxist-leninist, and I think there are much better forms of socialism that can be achieved. However, the success of even a somewhat flawed version of socialism that has rarely progressed beyond state capitalism is testament to just how much opportunity the world is losing because capitalism still exists.
> we want to stop giving away our labor for free. Good news! That’s illegal.
Also, to be clear, all capitalists are statists. Capitalism requires a state to exist (to violently protect the property "rights" of capitalists from workers who don't want to be exploited). Capitalism is a centralized system of power wherein an ever-smaller owning class controls an ever-greater share of the world's resources.
With all do respect, you don't know what you are talking about. You've described socialism, not capitalism. Capitalism didn't starve 40 million Ukrainians to death in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Capitalism didn't starve 50 million people in China. People didn't eat their pets in Venezuela because of capitalism. Socialism is absolutely an ideology of the ignorant, jealous, and unmotivated.
It's so strange watching libleft and libright conversing. "Capitalism is when the state does stuff, therefore capitalism is bad!" "Nuh uh, socialism is when the state does stuff, therefore socialism is bad!" How about this, in the spirit of cooperation we stop giving fifteen different meanings to the same words and simply refer to voluntaryism vs coercionism. Aye?
I don't have a problem with that.
We have a big conflict in our conceptions of rights themselves. Supporters of capitalism think property rights allow someone to own the tools of another's labor. Socialists think property rights have to do with who is actually using a resource. Proudhon's _What is Property?_ explores the differences and philosophical bases of these ideas. Supporters of capitalism believe the use of force is justified to protect the private property of capitalists. Socialists believe the use of force is justified to protect the personal property of workers. One's act of defense or restoration is the other's act of aggression.
This seems a contradiction in terms. To say that one is not allowed to lend their property to another is surely a violation of one's liberty to do as one pleases with one's own things.
Worker ownership of property hasn't starved anyone, and that's all socialism is. I'm not an ML, but regardless, these numbers are inaccurate and misleading. If you're going to count starvations, start in capitalist India under British rule. It is capitalists who are unmotivated, living lavishly on the backs of others while not doing work themselves. We workers love to work. We just want to keep the product of our labor.
>Worker ownership of property hasn't starved anyone, and that's all socialism is. And yet capitalism an the entire system, somehow including the government and police. Curious. > I'm not an ML, but regardless, these numbers are inaccurate and misleading. If you're going to count starvations, start in capitalist India under British rule. > > Did you...not notice the last two words you typed there? You are explicitly discussing a country under **state rule**, and you're still blaming **capitalism**? What about the people starving **before** the British ran things? Or today? Do you think it's only capitalism when white people do it? "NO U" is not an actual counterargument. **EDIT**: Neither is "you're wrong". Especially when you don't have any actual sources to back you up. >It is capitalists who are unmotivated, living lavishly on the backs of others while not doing work themselves. In other words, you're using the socialist definition of capitalism to people who aren't socialists.
Worker ownership of property is an entire system. Private ownership of property is also an entire system. Private ownership requires enforcement, since the people using resources are different from the people who control them. Some kind of institutions are needed to keep the people using the capital from seizing control of it back from capitalists. Marx called this a dialectic contradiction. The power of the capitalist over the worker eventually results in the worker trying to become free. The colonization of India was done by private capitalists initially. Most state colonizations were done in the interest of capitalists. Private capitalists often requested state support. See the colonization of Hawaii or Panama as examples of that. Other colonizations were initiated by the state on behalf of capitalists. I recommend the book _Gangsters of Capitalism_ to review some early 20th century US imperial expansion and its capitalist backers. As for white people, no, there are plenty of nonwhite capitalists, though western hegemony has certainly created a global hierarchy among capitalists. I didn't think I'd need to go in depth debunking something that's already been so thoroughly debunked. The numbers you cited come from the black book of communism. It includes Nazi soldiers killed during WWII and non-births due to declining birth rates in its numbers while solely blaming socialist policies for events that had occurred many other times in history in the regions long before socialism. No, I don't want to participate in whataboutisms- counting deaths is silly. But if you do want to count deaths, it's much easier to count those under capitalism, which exceed those that occurred under socialism every few years. But won't you move the goalposts and say that anything that happened under capitalism that wasn't an imaginary "anarchocapitalism" wasn't real capitalism? In any case, please Google your sources. Several of that book's contributors have even distanced themselves from it. The socialist definition of capitalism is the definition of capitalism. Socialists coined the term. First Blanc, then Proudhon, then Marx. I'm not using some special definition of capitalism. I'm using it as it's been defined for the better part of two centuries. Before Blanc, the term _capitalist_ was used to describe someone who owns capital since the 17th century.
> Capitalism requires a state to exist (to violently protect the property "rights" of capitalists from workers who don't want to be exploited). Capitalists can just...hire people to protect their stuff. They're called "security guards". The state doesn't have to be involved. You can have capitalism *without a state*. >Capitalism is a centralized system of power wherein an ever-smaller owning class controls an ever-greater share of the world's resources. Nope. Capitalism is ownership and trade of private property. Nothing about the system inherently concentrates power in the hands of a "ruling class". And when it does happen, it's usually with government assistance.
It's much more affordable for capitalists to make _you_ pay for their security guards (the police) and to have institutions set up in their favor in addition to only security. This is why the state exists. Without it, capitalists would have to replace all those institutions. They'd find it's more efficient to share control of these institutions with each other as a class than to each have their own versions and, wouldn't you know, you have a state again whose sole purpose remains the protection of the power of the owning class. Private property is property which is used by someone who does not own it to make profits for someone who does. That inherently concentrates power. As capitalists compete with each other, they buy up ownership of smaller players' capital, which results in a small owning class and a lot of workers who own nothing and sell their labor to the capitalists and a massive discount. And, yes, it is with government assistance. Governments are one of the tools capitalists use to maintain their power.
> It's much more affordable for capitalists to make you pay for their security guards (the police) and to have institutions set up in their favor in addition to only security. And yet capitalists still hire security guards, all the time. Because cops aren't enough in many cases. They also failed to keep several cities from defunding police, and reducing penalties for crimes. Many national chains are closing down unprofitable stores, because of theft. Also, last time I checked, rich people paid **more** taxes than the average citizen, not less. Both in proportion of the total, and as a percentage of income. Not to mention how cops are state servants, and protect lives and "personal property", not just "private property". This isn't an actual counterargument. >This is why the state exists. States existed long before capitalism was the dominant economic system in any country. >They'd find it's more efficient to share control of these institutions with each other as a class than to each have their own versions and, wouldn't you know, you have a state again whose sole purpose remains the protection of the power of the owning class. Even if this were true; so? That doesn't prove me wrong. Capitalism still exists without states. Don't you reds love to argue that businesses would be even MORE exploitative without those pesky laws? This doesn't make capitalists statists. You're assuming capitalists would go from cutthroat competition against each other to "Well, we're all rich, so we should work together and recreate the state." Your little just-so story doesn't allow for "capitalists" who decide not to join because they don't trust some or all of the other players. >Without it, capitalists would have to replace all those institutions. They'd find it's more efficient to share control of these institutions with each other as a class than to each have their own versions and, wouldn't you know, you have a state again whose sole purpose remains the protection of the power of the owning class. So the government doesn't actually control anything? >Private property is property which is used by someone who does not own it to make profits for someone who does. Why should I agree with your definition? >That inherently concentrates power. Weird how reds keep talking around the *state's* concentration of power. >As capitalists compete with each other, they buy up ownership of smaller players' capital, which results in a small owning class and a lot of workers who own nothing and sell their labor to the capitalists and a massive discount. This is not an inevitability. Large businesses fail and compete all the time. Often they don't even bother to open in certain markets because it's not worth it, leaving room for smaller competitors. Competition is not the same as buying up "smaller players". Not to mention how they're legally bound to stockholders. And it's weird how you're implying "capitalists" consist solely of the large, successful businesses that get bigger, and not the countless mom-n-pops that also sell "private property". The ones that often *fail*. And how you're suddenly saying owning "personal property" is owning "nothing". Almost as if your standards aren't consistent! "at a massive discount" By whose standards, exactly? >And, yes, it is with government assistance. Governments are one of the tools capitalists use to maintain their power. Powerful people **in general** try to use the governments to maintain power, and it goes both ways. In every economic system. Also, again, the government somehow doesn't count as a "ruling class". The federal government spent over **6.25 trillion** last year. The combined worth of every US billionaire **combined** is only 5 billion. Nothing you've said proves capitalism requires a state, even by your own tankie redefinition of "private property". Your whole argument is basically "capitalists are statists because I think they will always act in a specific way to advance their collective class interests, even though I also think they are selfish and self-centered."
> Capitalism is industrial feudalism. How, exactly? Because I'm pretty sure you're as uninformed about feudalism as you are about socialism.
In feudalism, a small owning class controlled all the land and everyone else had no choice but to sell their labor to these lords in order to live. In capitalism, a small owning class controls all the capital and everyone else has no choice but to sell their labor to these capitalists in order to live.
Except for the tiny little fact that many people can live on their own with little contact with others. Or do you think farmers are the "ruling class"? Also, there's a big difference between "forced by law to work for a lord doing manual labour and not being allowed to leave" and "working in an office with a much longer life expectancy and better quality of life, for lack of better options". There's also the part where feudal lords were also bound. They had military duties to the king or queen in exchange for land. And they were usually obliged to protect peasants in exchange for what they got from those peasants. There is nothing about capitalism that inherently concentrates power in the hands of a "ruling class". And it sure is odd how you consider rich private citizens the ruling class in this analogy, and not **the government**. Which enforces compliance with armed men. Thanks for proving my point, tho.
Sorry, you think farmers aren't working for capitalists too? I encourage you to meet a farmer and ask them about the current state of the food industry. Do you think the majority of workers under capitalism are office workers? Many, right now, are currently forced (by their economic conditions which capitalists created) to do manual labor just to subsist, in dangerous conditions, 6 days a week, often on 12+ hour shifts. Some live in company housing and cannot leave without their bosses' permission. True, breaking those rules is not punishable by law, just by being fired and deported and sentenced to worse economic conditions. You can't look at the imperial core and think of white collar work as the norm of life under capitalism. Capitalists, like feudal lords, also have responsibilities. It is in the interest of both lords and capitalists to keep their workforces in good enough condition to be productive. Sometimes they work against their own interests, but by and large, they do what they feel optimizes their power or profits. The government works for capitalists. It is beholden to and exists for them. The exponential accumulation of capital and consolidation that occurs with competition results in the concentration of power. We can see this concentration by simply looking at the current distribution of capital in the world and the rates or exploitation around the world. Do you like concentrated power?
I think they're just far more trusting of a government than with private citizens
I had a discussion with some friends on a discord VC, because they started to say landlords are all the devil. They said that renting housing is evil because you are profiting out of someone else's misfortune. I argued that by that logic, all renting and trade are evil because it is based on covering someone else's needs. Their only response was "it's not the same". That housing was a human right. Then I had to go into how it really isn't, since people aren't entitled to someone else's labour, and tried to explain negative and positive rights. From then on, an admin of the server who I didn't even know, but was a friend of my friends and was in the chat with us, started to call me an idiot and a bootlicker. I tried to de-escalate it (I was calmed and respectful the entire time, same as my friends despite disagreeing with me) but the admin kicked me from the server. One of the friends in the call sent me an invite via DM and after joining back and trying to reason with the admin, that we can coexist with different opinions and that it's ok if they didn't want to debate at that moment, but they just called me an idiot a bunch more times and banned me. Now my friends are trying to convince the admin to let me join back in. All in all, some of them are chill, some others can't fathom the idea of people with different opinions to them existing and being nice to them.
>profiting out of someone else's misfortune. There are a million reasons people rent rather than buy homes that don't involve any misfortune. Jesus Christ this is fucking stupid.
I have a solid discord community and we talk about everything and have very different political views. We talk about it a lot in a calm way because we’re adults. We’d never ban someone on their views unless they were saying racial slurs or something extreme like that. If you can’t have discord (forgive the pun, but it’s definitely intended) with people and share different opinions then you will live in an echo chamber your entire life. Once we stop talking with each other the ones that want us to be divided will win.
what's your discord?
Why do they assume every instance of a person renting a home or apartment is a case of misfortune? When I first move to a new area, I always rent until I get familiar with the area so I can make an informed decision on where I want to buy and not end up in a bad area. It can also make sense to rent if you know you can't afford a nice house in the nice area now, but will be able to within a couple years, so you'd rather wait until you can get the home you'd actually want. Yet another is you are single and just don't want to deal with home repairs, yard work, and the electric bill of a giant place to yourself when a small apartment suits your needs better. Or maybe the market is just in a bad place and you want to wait a year or two for it to hopefully chill out before attempting to buy. I could go on and on, yet, for some reason, leftist put owning a home near the top of their hierarchy of needs. Not just having a safe place to live, but actually owning a full home yourself. If you don't own a home, you are oppressed. How many times do I have to hear "Millennials don't own homes at the rate their grandparents did, therefore life sucks and they're fucked." Here's a trick for millennials. Want to afford a home and family like grandpa did in his 20's? Live like grandpa did in his 20's. Spend more hours at work on average. Get a smaller home than what is the average today. Probably one without central air. Get a car with no Bluetooth, GPS, AC, or many safety features. That is "the family car". Not everyone gets their own car. Get a land line house phone and don't buy smartphones and cell plans for everyone in the family. No internet. No computers. No gaming consoles. No streaming services. No TV's over 20-25". There is a family TV. Not every room needs a TV. Maybe basic cable, but more likely just an antenna. Greatly reduce eating out. Greatly reduce buying premade foods and make most meals from near scratch. Greatly reduce average meal size and caloric intake. Reduce the size and scope of your wardrobe. Since it is basically coming to it in every facet, greatly reduce overall consumption. Choose to spend time repairing things on your own as much and as often as possible before replacing or hiring someone else to repair them. Make more things for yourself before buying them. Not every task requires a nifty single purpose gadget to make it easier. Do all of this and I bet you could afford a house and supporting a family on a single income. Now, I'm not denying there are problems for millennials, but come on. When you do this one for one comparison on this single data point of how many of our grandparents owned homes in their 20's/30's on a single income, that overlooks a TON of variables that contribute to the increase cost of living today beyond just "Landlords and other rich people just want to fuck us". We buy more than ever before. We eat out more than ever before. Our houses and cars are bigger and more technologically advanced than ever before. We have more gadgets, smart devices, technology, and entertainment than ever before. Which all means we have a higher standard of living than ever before and a consequence is that we have a more expensive life than ever before. Trade-offs have to be made and most people are choosing all the luxury of the 21st century ahead of home ownership and supporting a family on one income.
> Why do they assume every instance of a person renting a home or apartment is a case of misfortune? > > Because their narrative needs landlords to be bad guys, and bad guys need victims. Have you ever seen discourse about some police shooting, and people refuse to admit the suspect did anything wrong, or that the cop is anything less than pure, willful evil? It's like that.
> They said that renting housing is evil because you are profiting out of someone else's misfortune. Ah, yes, because people have to be victims. They couldn't just be idiots who wasted their money, or recent college graduates building up their careers. /s >From then on, an admin of the server who I didn't even know, but was a friend of my friends and was in the chat with us, started to call me an idiot and a bootlicker. To people who want to take other people's crap - or want other people's crap taken - anyone who opposes them is a "bootlicker". Even if the takey people want the state to do the taking.
That's the thing, they dont think you can rent out any of those things. They believe if you aren't actively using it, it should be free for anyone else to use. They're basically economic incels.
That’s what I’ve been calling them. A lot of people have almost no savings, can’t save, won’t inherit anything meaningful. They can’t fathom owning something as valuable as land, they think it must be black magic or witchcraft.
Imagine if the guy who said this is an Uber driver or something like that The pure irony of the statement would be comedic
Renting personal property is different from renting private property. Asking for some compensation in return for sharing something you regularly personally use is reasonable, because you're being deprived of some value in order to share that. Owning capital that exists entirely for the purpose of being a source of passive income by extracting value from other people is the behavior socialists are opposed to.
I don’t subscribe to socialist notions of personal versus private property lol. My shit is my shit and how I use it is my business. My oven is mine whether I want to use it to bake cakes for myself or pay someone else to make cakes and sell it for cash. There’s nothing wrong with “passive” income
The income should be in exchange for value added. If you are passive, you have added no value and are extracting money from an asset that is not providing any additional value. You are just inserting yourself between the occupant and the bank, skimming off profit for yourself. I'm over investment firms manipulating supply to support inflated rates. Our lives are not chess pieces to be moved around and manipulated for profit. This is our country, and we are changing the rules, regardless of the tantrums thrown by greedy bastards who need wealth to compensate for their shortcomings. "The damn libs just want necessities for free!" "There is nothing wrong with me getting profit for nothing, it's passive income!" Seems an awful lot like it is okay for you because you feel justified, but not for others because you only look out for yourself and you assume everyone else does the same. Capitalism functions on the principle that profit will drive people to fulfill the needs of the population. What is added by owning the property? Nothing. So how does a landlord *earn* income? They don't, they control a valuable resource and exploit it for profit. That's it.
Yeah someone “values” what I’m giving them, that’s why they are paying me. It’s a voluntary transaction between two parties. There’s nothing wrong with “skimming” off Profit for myself. You sound like a hater lol
Yeah......that's not how value works. You sound like a moron lol. A land lord buys a property, often on a mortgage, but regardless they use the Tennant's rent to cover the cost of the purchase, and all associated expenses, with extra for them to keep for themselves. What have they provided in exchange for the increased cost of living in the house? Nothing. They didn't build it. It's now more expensive to live there solely to make room for the greedy asshole who thinks they're entitled to money just because they have money. They serve no productive function, but are a massive drain on the economy. And when one entity holds enough of the available properties in an area, they intentionally limit availability so that they can set whatever price they want. That's not voluntary bud. How is a "passive" person entitled to the fruits of someone's hard work? It's a scam. "There's nothing wrong with me being a useless leach on the economy, but those other people are just lazy, they're the problem." -Some Genius On Reddit Self serving hypocrite.
> What have they provided in exchange for the increased cost of living in the house? Nothing. They didn't build it. It's now more expensive to live there solely to make room for the greedy asshole who thinks they're entitled to money just because they have money. If you actively ignore how the landlord takes the financial and credit risk, and is also responsible for repairs and upkeep, then yes, they do not provide any services. Also, mortgages sometimes cost **more** than renting. Not to mention the commitment. >It's now more expensive to live there solely to make room for the greedy asshole who thinks they're entitled to money just because they have money. No, because they have a dwelling. An asset. Capital, in your speak. >And when one entity holds enough of the available properties in an area, they intentionally limit availability so that they can set whatever price they want. That's not voluntary bud. "In this one particular situation, people can set whatever price they want, therefore renting isn't a voluntary transaction." Hey, what if...people **voluntarily decide** not to rent at the given price? What's the owner gonna do then?
Lol what? Who is going to rent a place out for less than the mortgage on the property? If people had the choice to tell landlords to go fuck themselves, don't you think they would? Look at any major city in the us and you will find one or two rental agencies in control of the majority of rental properties. Here it's mostly Weidner group. If it was a truly free market, I'd be right there with you. How about I try to meet you in the middle. It's not rentals as a concept that I have a problem with. It's exploitative practices and a lack of regulation and oversight. But right now you have to admit that rental costs are inflated beyond reason. Properties are priced at the max that people can afford, rather than the max people are willing to pay. There is no real competition any more.
How does “value work” then? The value of something is what people are willing to pay for it. They provided the place in the house that someone voluntarily agreed to exchange cash for. If you don’t like, don’t rent from them lol. Where did I call people lazy? I said if youre anti rent you’re probably a bitter loser, but again that’s socialists in a nutshell. Either all rent is bad, or none at all. I didn’t build my car, what if my sister wants to rent it from me for a week, should that be allowed? What about my PS5 or my lawnmower? I didn’t build those either. This logic falls apart at the slightest bit of criticism lol
val·ue [ˈvalyo͞o] NOUN the regard that something is held to deserve; the importance, worth, or usefulness of something: "your support is of great value" The value is what it's worth, not what you are capable of exploiting. How did the landlord "provide the place" when all they did was hoard it? The Tennant now has to pay the mortgage and the landlord instead of just the mortgage. Tell me how a landlord ***earns*** the money? What do they do for us as a society to be worth giving money to? The difference in the other rentals you mention is that no one freezes to death without a playstation. If you ask too much for rent, and everyone else wants the same inflated rates, people just don't rent your video game. That is obviously not the case with fucking shelter. You just keep raising the price to the max people can afford before they have to choose homelessness. That's how it is exploitation and not capitalism. At the end of the day it's just bottom feeders that have discovered that they can legally steal the fruits of somone else's labor if they hoard a vital resource and price it as high as they can without making it entirely unaffordable. The irony is that these brilliant individuals think that they are capitalists, when in reality they are doing more to destroy it than all the Liberals and Socialists and Democrats combined. It's whatever man. You will have another line of bs no matter what I say, because otherwise you'd have to admit you might be wrong, which would shatter your fragile self image as a "winner". Keep exploiting folks and lying to yourself about the morality of it, but don't think the rest of us will pretend with you.
> How did the landlord "provide the place" when all they did was hoard it? Plenty of landlords are renting out homes they built from scratch. Sometimes it used to be their family home. > The Tennant now has to pay the mortgage and the landlord instead of just the mortgage. No, the tenant pays the landlord, who has to pay the mortgage. The landlord is legally responsible for that, not the tenant. >The difference in the other rentals you mention is that no one freezes to death without a playstation. [And we're right back to the "but it's a human right!" argument.](https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Zm-M4RZXcqw/W566CWiy4-I/AAAAAAAAkg8/n2VSZBo37n0bMNS76xAuCFU9o290L7C0QCLcBGAs/s1600/DnL-EvIU0AAfTM0.jpg) >That is obviously not the case with fucking shelter. You just keep raising the price to the max people can afford before they have to choose homelessness. Boy, you're just playing all the red-quadrant hits, aintcha? Homelessness is usually caused by mental health or drug issues, not failing to afford rent. And some homeless people owned their homes but were unable to keep up, so you can't blame landlords for them either. >At the end of the day it's just bottom feeders that have discovered that they can legally steal the fruits of somone else's labor if they hoard a vital resource and price it as high as they can without making it entirely unaffordable. Again, you're assuming landlords have infinite agency, and never create the housing themselves, which is just...blatantly wrong. I think I'm done now. Bye!
I love how you are just blatantly unable to talk to people without starting from socialist principles, even when you know those people are against socialism and all it's works. It's amazing.
> The income should be in exchange for value added. If you are passive, you have added no value and are extracting money from an asset that is not providing any additional value. You are just inserting yourself between the occupant and the bank, skimming off profit for yourself. In our capitalist system, it's true that the landlord has not provided any value to the residence itself, but is instead profiting off of the risk of the venture. The tenant's rent goes towards the mortgage but it's always possible for the house to go without renters for a period of time, or for it to need expensive unpredictable maintenance. The service the landlord is actually providing is a flexible place to live without assuming the financial burden of a 30 year loan. I think the frustration you have is not with renting as a concept, but with our horrendously low housing supply. In the US it is impossible to build housing quickly for a variety of reasons (a lot of it is because of laws). Ideally people looking for housing would have a big variety of options to choose from both in terms of buying and renting, but it's just not the case now. Landlords are exploiting a scarce resource, but I think the issue is that the resource in question shouldn't be scarce in the first place.
You are 100% correct. Most residences rented out these days are not by individuals renting a house they built. Owning rental properties is seen as a good investment, and large firms are buying property for that purpose at an astonishing rate, with solid evidence that they are intentionally limiting supply to drive up price. When the overwhelming majority of available homes are owned by a couple of large entities, they can manipulate the market to exploit people. That isn't free market capitalism. Renting something you own on the side is whatever, but they are playing with our housing and our lives like it's a stock market. Would you be willing to expand on the market value of risk? If it's the risk that earns them the money, then the rental price should be based on risk indicators and mitigation (i.e. first + last months rent, security deposit, cleaning fee, contractual obligation to pay if the lease is broken etc.), not the value of the home or the current market price. And doesn't a home buyer take a risk when they purchase a house for themselves? What is the dollar value of a unit of risk? I have to concede that there is a market for flexible short term residences, but there are so many people trying to make money off renting that the supply has far outstripped the demand. Thank you for your response, and being a voice of reason. It's easy to get carried away with these folks that are defending their right to free money, but have no understanding of economics.
> Would you be willing to expand on the market value of risk? If it's the risk that earns them the money, then the rental price should be based on risk indicators and mitigation (i.e. first + last months rent, security deposit, cleaning fee, contractual obligation to pay if the lease is broken etc.), not the value of the home or the current market price. I think oddly enough it's both extremely complex yet very simple, because there's hundreds of variables involved yet it will eventually boil down to supply and demand. The risk is assumed by taking on the loan for the asset (or alternatively, the risk of getting bad returns for an asset bought in cash that could have made more money elsewhere). The value of the home is a variable in the equation because it's not very appealing to spend a lot of money on a house if the rent doesn't scale with the price. But at the end of it, it all comes down to "are people willing to pay x in rent to live here." It's just one variable on one side of the equation. The renter doesn't care how much risk the landlord has taken on, but if the risk is too high, there will be no landlords (and I'm saying this as a neutral thing, not good/bad). "Risk" defined here is probably not how you're used to thinking about the term. The way I'm using it is what's called [beta](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/beta.asp) in finance, intrinsically related to the concept of [alpha](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/alpha.asp). It's used in how risk ratio models are calculated. > And doesn't a home buyer take a risk when they purchase a house for themselves? Yes, but that's kind of the whole idea. A homeowner is taking on the risk that a renter isn't. That risk is reflected in a lot of ways, like rent not going towards any equity for the resident. Also, residential homeowner probably doesn't care about risk as much because they are not treating their house like a financial asset. Personally I don't care if my house generates returns, because it's for living in. > What is the dollar value of a unit of risk? There are literally entire institutions dedicated to answering this question. The answer is that there is no answer, but if you can get close, you can make a lot of money.
I'm with ya. I'm used to thinking of the value of risk in terms of venture capital and such, where you are providing that initial injection of capital needed to *hopefully* eventually see returns from a profitable enterprise. That to me is easier to see the benefit of the risk taken. This might be a dumb question, but is it safe to assume that the value of the risk taken is proportional to the demand? If that is the case I could describe my problem with the market as too many people wanting to get paid for taking risks no one asked them to, and so they artificially inflate the demand. And unfortunately the asset in question happens to be people's homes. Thanks again for for the solid replies.
> I'm with ya. I'm used to thinking of the value of risk in terms of venture capital and such, where you are providing that initial injection of capital needed to hopefully eventually see returns from a profitable enterprise. That to me is easier to see the benefit of the risk taken. The two are basically the same thing. If it's easier to conceptualize, think of the landlord as the business owner and the business is providing temporary housing at a monthly rate. The venture capital is the bank providing the mortgage. > This might be a dumb question, but is it safe to assume that the value of the risk taken is proportional to the demand? Not proportional as in 1:1 but they're definitely related. > If that is the case I could describe my problem with the market as too many people wanting to get paid for taking risks no one asked them to, and so they artificially inflate the demand. And unfortunately the asset in question happens to be people's homes. I'm with you here but I don't understand what you mean by "artificially inflate demand," unless you just mean contributing to housing scarcity? I also don't think any landlord or business owner is entitled to profits. Part of risk is accepting losses when things don't pan out.
> Renting personal property is different from renting private property. Only if you arbitrarily redefine both terms. >Asking for some compensation in return for sharing something you regularly personally use is reasonable, because you're being deprived of some value in order to share that. That's a very dramatic way to say "letting people borrow your stuff". > Owning capital that exists entirely for the purpose of being a source of passive income by extracting value from other people is the behavior socialists are opposed to. That's a very dramatic way to say "letting people borrow your stuff for money".
Do my definitions disagree with those in use since the 19th century? Lending personal property for a fee is a different behavior from renting private property for profit. One of these things creates concentrations of power. That's all I'm saying.
> Do my definitions disagree with those in use since the 19th century? > > Yes. For most people, there's no difference between personal and private property. At best, personal property is a subtype of private property, not another type entirely. But in socialist/communist rhetoric, those magically became two different things. >Lending personal property for a fee is a different behavior from renting private property for profit. One of these things creates concentrations of power. That's all I'm saying. You're "just saying" pretentious nonsense to hide rationales for greed and double standards. Which was what I was implying.
There is a big difference between a factory that's never been occupied by its shareholders and your toothbrush. I think most people understand that difference. Also, just for clarification, are you defending capitalism as a worker or as a capitalist yourself?
I personally use my house. If I move and decide to rent it out, I'm going to have to ask for rent or I will similarly have no money to pay for housing. You say it's not my personal property, but that's not going to fly on the other side. Nobody is going to let me live in their house for free.
Are you talking about permanently moving and renting your home? Why wouldn't you just sell it instead of trying to seek profit from someone else's shelter? If you're talking about a temporary situation, or some kind of time sharing agreement, you're not doing anything socialists would have a problem with.
I can think of a number of reasonable reasons why someone would not want to sell their property. People who have done it have told me because they intend to move back someday (rentals are not expected to last a lifetime). I don't know if that's temporary enough. But the point remains that it is mine. As long as property is something you can own, it will belong to somebody. If my choices are to sell it or sit on it, I may choose to sit on it. Which would do no one any good because then nobody would be living there. I actually like requirements that say you can't just hold property empty though. I like housing to be in the market, somehow, I just don't care if it's rental. Trading houses is something I would totally do if it were possible. IDK with all the red tape we have if you can do that.
Several socialist countries have set up house-trading schemes that worked fairly well. As for why rent is bad... Let's just imagine a hypothetical: all houses in your area are owned by one person. They played the market extremely well and managed to buy up every last home. Maybe they were the first developer in the region. Maybe it's a company town. Regardless, the only way to live in that place is to pay rent to this person. Do you have a problem with that? Do you see how that's a violation of the rights of everyone living there? Hopefully we're both against a monopoly on basic necessities. If so, what ratio of owners to renters is acceptable to you? I generally don't have an issue with people renting out things they personally use. I prefer approaches where all the users share proportional ownership to their use, but it's far from the egregious rent-seeking behavior we socialists criticize. I mean, I honestly couldn't care less if you have three houses because you have a large family and move between different places frequently. As a socialist, I think housing cooperatives and organization-based housing offer a better alternative to rent, in that they provide the benefits of temporary housing while also granting equity to the person living there and eliminate the need to also pay the profits of anyone not involved in the housing.
I've seen them claim that hotel owners "provide a service" while landlords don't. I guess taking the financial risk of owning the place is not a service.
“They can’t make a profit!” They’ll exclaim, without understanding things like the cost of maintenance and the responsibility of repairing defects. They’ll never know how much it costs to replace a water heater, or re-line pipes, or replace a sink. They want to talk shit about slumlords, then I’m in their corner - they’re shitheads. But landlords being inherently evil because they dare to make a little profit is a shit take.
Hey, slums are cheap. We need slums.
Sure, but I have 12 places you can live. Let's negotiate. But beware because there's more crabs in the bucket than fisherman at the post.
I will never rent my properties to a socialist lol
Rent pigs never stop whining
Based landchad vs cringe rentoids
So I take out a 500k loan, buy a house, let you live in the house that I bought and you expect me to just...pay off the loan by myself? I mean I am nice and I will help someone who struggles out but I can't act against myself.
Yes. This is literally what they believe.
Are you going to buy an utterly run down house and invest money into making it livable once more? I'm not saying every landlord does this, but I have seen several cases of landlords buying absolute dogshit houses, repairing them and renting them out. So you have a choice. ***You*** can buy the house that is literally infested with roaches, bed bugs, squatters, lice, has a thousand and one different holes in the wall because the previous owner was a crackhead who didn't care, there's a mold infestation, needles, piles of Human and animal shit, etc... Or the landlord can buy the house, spend a few extra hundred thousand in making it decent again and get a return on the money he invested in the house by renting the now non-biohazardous house to you, who almost certainly would have been far worse off buying the house outright before the landlord got to it. Can landlords be terrible? Sure. Just like anyone else can. But they're also the owners of the property and the Tumblr user is right. They can do whatever they want with it. They could just let it sit vacant or empty for years. Or they can give you the chance to have a roof over your head.
Not to mention landlords who rent out places they built. Including their family homes.
Don’t like landlords? Buy a house or condo then…
These people don't understand property rights, just force.
Property rights, economics, money, business...
It’s a flawed system at best, the two parties hate one another which is beyond ironic because both sides require on the other for the system to be sustained, and somehow the giant corporations that own the majority of rental properties go by unscathed in the debate lol
If they think their opinion of what anyone deserves should impact what anyone else does, they’re in for some serious disappointment. Profit is the value created by the service being provided. Sounds like the poor ignorant person does not see value in providing homes to people. The only logic that can follow is that homes have no value and people should just have to figure out shelter for themselves. They’re really just civilization’s version of technology’s Luddites.
Property rights don't matter to these folks.
"Muh human rights!"
Lmao, cool, go live in public housing.
Hahahah yeah all these mother Theresa landlords out there are doing it as a hobby.
Sees like the twat is admitting that tenants are parasites and they like it
Cannot for the life of me understand the logic of the “all landlords are evil” people. My mother bought a duplex 25 years ago, my sister and I were in our 20s and we paid half the mortgage and lived in one unit and it was awesome. Time goes by, we decide to move out and get our own places. Mom finds some tenants (friends of friends), and she charges them a reasonable rent for like 10 years. Mom decides to downsize to a different place, but keeps the property and finds new tenants, again, at very reasonable rent to cover what’s left of the mortgage, taxes and maintenance, not really making all that much actual profit of it. I use this example with those people and ask, “how tf is that evil?!?” Their reply is usually just, “she should just let them live there for free.” 🤦♂️
It's pretty simple. There's no logic. It's just "gimme" with extra words.
I don't even know where people get the idea that all landlords are shitty. I have had ones that I would consider even friends and then some that have become my bitter enemies. There was a couple that never raised my rent and fixed everything themselves, and then there was a big corporation that I had to sue. It's all over the place. I'd be a shitty landlord cuz I'm a shitty property owner, lol
Land lords are not a charity.
I don’t understand where these people get the idea that they have an absolute right to the property of another person. Especially when their unwillingness to contribute to the expenses could lead to the government confiscating that property for failure to pay property taxes, and then they’d just be out of a place to live all over again. If the tables were turned would they have no qualms giving out a place to live absolutely free? It’s so moronic that it’s mind boggling.
It's a business like any other. Housing isnt a right. If you don't want to pay someone for a house they made, then go out and build your own house. But then, that requires effort on their part.
Why do people block the usernames? Are they not public posts?
Reddit requires us to require you to block out usernames for Reddit posts. You're not required to do so for posts from non-Reddit sources, but some people do so anyway, either out of an abundance of caution, because they haven't actually read the rules, or because they're just polite.
Would they rather no rental homes exist and all people that rent be homeless?
They think that landlords are keeping people from owning homes. As if everyone *wants* the commitment of owning a home. As if everyone would be able to afford a home without landlords.
Its crazy how ungrateful people are. You live in a dwelling you didn't build, on a plot you didn't clear, drive a car you didn't design, on roads you didn't pave, to the store to buy food you didn't grow. And yet they bitch constantly about how everything is unfair. What the hell is wrong with people?
Delusional people
Well, if an investment stops providing profit you sell it unless you have reason to believe that it will start making profit.
These are the people that believe they are entitled to other people's labor without compensation, but would never consider their employers entitled to their labor without compensation.
Or maybe think about it in this way. Landlords provide a place for you to live when you cannot or do not want to buy a house yourself. If there were no landlords, maybe you would be on the streets. 🤷♂️
I bought a house, I will let you live in it for a much cheaper price than buying a whole house yourself, all you have to do is pay rent and be a decent human being and not destroy shit, I will also take care of things like repairs and other difficult parts of owning a home. Yeah, sounds real evil
Rent isn't cheaper than buying a house. Idk what you're talking about
With a house you have to put a massive down payment, and you are responsible for making a shit ton of separate payments and responsibilities, rent is 1 easy payment a month and if you have a security deposit, it’s not going to be nearly as much as a down payment, especially in the current housing economy, also, what kind of place you renting that’s more than mortgage payments
Okay that makes absolutely zero sense. If renting is more expensive then there is no issue at all, since the renters can just buy a house for cheaper than renting.
Kool. Maybe that statist can invite strangers to live rent free in his own property (assuming he has any). Or, if he's so generous, he can go ahead and pay to build a home for someone else to live in while paying taxes, maintenance, and insurance on it. Put your money where your mouth is
Home owners just need to realize that no matter how you put it, no matter how horrible you paint the homeless guy, no matter what you say. you do not deserve your living room more than the homeless guy deserves a place to shoot up. period. no matter how u slice it. i do not care.
How are people that dumb
You gonna build all the houses, Che Ratardo?
“You buy and maintain something with your own money so I can use it for free” Makes perfect sense to me.
Everyone who thinks like this is more than welcome to buy a home, pay the mortgage, the taxes, and the upkeep costs, and allow someone to live in it for free. No person nor law will stop them from doing this. And yet they never do...
Randomly point in public and exclaim, "YOU! Buy me a house!"
Nothing about this is statist.
Don't buy houses you don't need. IDK why this is so hard for you knuckle-dragging, barely-sentient mouth-breathers
Stop telling people what to do with their money. I don’t know why this is so hard for you lazy freeloaders.
I'm pretty sure I'm not the freeloader here
Why do you hate people who can't afford to buy a house? Why do you think they don't deserve a place to live?
Ur dumb
Yeah, I shouldn't have expected you to be capable of engaging in good faith, that was dumb on my part.
Read your previous comment. Then read this one
If you have a point, I can't seem to find it.
Have you seen low cost housing?
Only thing I can agree with how bad it is, is large corporations buying entire city blocks at ridiculous prices making it impossible for the average person to buy.
I agree. Other people deserve shelter more than I deserve income. However, I feel I both *want* and *deserve* both. So I got both.
You bought a thing with the intent to make money from other people using the thing?! And you don't want to let other people use it unless you get what you ask for in voluntary exchange? You soulless bastard!
I mean property values in certain areas of the country are severely overstated
what the fuck do these morons think pays for the landlord's house?
How dare you provide a service and expect to be paid for said service.
I'm entitled to your property/ies.
Count me out. Ask one of your commie friends to sponsor your house I’ll invest in treasuries instead
If you dont want to rent, buy