• PugJesus@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    85
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    “As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce.”

    • Nobody@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      70
      arrow-down
      5
      ·
      1 year ago

      Modern rent seeking is rooted in a feudal concept. The lord maintained an army that protected the land, and the workers paid the lord for the upkeep of the army that protected them.

      Modern landlords provide absolutely nothing but exploitation of their tenants. They take rent and provide nothing anywhere near equal in value.

      They are parasites on the working class. Our labor gives them profit, and they offer only what should be ours by right.

      We pay to live here. It’s our home. You only rent seek, you fucking parasite.

      • ssboomman
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        30
        arrow-down
        10
        ·
        1 year ago

        Not sure why you’re being so heavily downvoted, it’s true. Landlords, due to their position in society benifit from high poverty, less rent control, etc. Working class people want the exact opposite. It’s a clear and obvious dielectic contradiction

        • WarmSoda
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          6
          ·
          1 year ago

          Where are you going to live if you can’t buy a house?

            • WarmSoda
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              2
              ·
              1 year ago

              Ok I hear you. Like you would buy the bottom or top floor.

              Same question though, what happens if you don’t have enough money up front to buy a unit?

              • Anamnesis@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                7
                arrow-down
                2
                ·
                1 year ago

                Seems like a simple solution here: tax and redistribute money to pay for social housing to be built by the government, subsidizing people’s housing.

          • LesserAbe@lemmy.worldOP
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            7
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            That’s the issue - do we want people to be homeless? No. So we should proactively fix the situation and build social housing, implement rent control and limits on non occupied structures.

            Even setting aside love and empathy, it’s to the benefit of society for people to be productive, which is hard when you’re scrambling just to meet basic needs. And the cost of homelessness on society (shelters, emergency medical care, crime) outweighs the cost of providing permanent shelter. There have been studies.

            • AA5B@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              Yes, but land free for the taking is not part of that argument, and is naive at best

              • LesserAbe@lemmy.worldOP
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                4
                ·
                1 year ago

                It’s not about “give me free land” it’s “resources were distributed before I existed.”

          • ssboomman
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            4
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            1 year ago

            Funny you say that, since the reason why houses are so expensive is because landlords are buying all of them to rent, and creating artificial scarcity which drives up the price. They create a problem where the only solution is to pay them.

            Without landlords, worst case, housing would be far more inexpensive. Best case we could even make them free, and start treating housing like a human right and fundamental need.

            • rchive
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              One separate reason housing is expensive in the US, at least, is that most jurisdictions make it very hard to build new housing. Law of supply, if supply goes down, price goes up, if supply goes up, price goes down. Supply hasn’t been allowed to increase much for the last few decades, therefore price goes up. If we could double the amount of housing over night, it wouldn’t matter how much landlords wanted to buy everything up, they wouldn’t be able to keep up.

              • ssboomman
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                1 year ago

                We already have more than enough housing to give everyone a home, and have some left over. Landlords are causing an artificial scarcity.