Many are. But I’ll stick my neck out here for when I rented in socal.
My landlord Randy was a retired dentist. He had built an ADU on his property in order to care for his very elderly mother. She had since passed away, leaving him with an empty mobile home in his backyard.
It sat empty for a few years, as his now-adult children and friends didn’t need it. He couldn’t sell it because of minimum plot size, setbacks, and utility issues.
I ended up renting from him for two years, and it was an excellent situation with reasonable rent and a great relationship.
I think a great many landlords are garbage, and I don’t think it’s possible to be a corporate landlord without being garbage. But there are some situations where a landlord is just a person who finds themselves in a situation where renting a space out makes the most sense. Open to other perspectives on this.
Landlords, by virtue of being a landlord, means their income is generated through rent seeking off the basic human necessity of shelter via simply “owning” the domicile that is being lived in by someone else through the system of private property ownership which is a core feature inherent to the unjust and oppressive capitalist economy.
By having their income be generated through simply having ownership over a means of survival makes them of the bourgeoisie/owning class and are inherently leeches off of those of the working class who must rent instead of own.
I think they key counter-argument comes from your position “leeches off of those of the working class who must rent”. I agree with this! But it ignores people that want to rent for whatever reason, like living somewhere for a few years to attend university.
The only reason people want to rent is due to the inherent complications of the capitalist system making it unfeasible for those who fall underneath an arbitrary financial threshold to be able to own property plus the unnecessary complications that monetary systems cause in the exchanging said property.
Under a communal system of ownership. You can own the home for a few years while you live in it, under the rule of usufruct (use-based ownership), and once you are done the property returns to the community as a collective until someone else has need of it.
It doesn’t need to be any more complicated than that. But it is only because of the current systems we live under arbitrarily making this more complicated so that a few individuals (the owning class) can exploit these complications for profit and personal enrichment
Putting the cart before the horse here. We live in a capitalist society and people need temporary dwellings now, they can’t wait for a proletarian revolution and total restructuring of society.
Cool, but that has nothing to do with my point. I never said people should wait. I said landlords are leeches.
The fact that people can’t wait and the current system leaves them with no other alternative other than to be leeched on by someone who withholds private ownership over their home is an inherently oppressive situation to be in.
I just think your point is too black-and-white. In the current system there exists people who want temporary housing and people who own more housing than they require and are willing to let others use it for a mutually agreeable payment. Your claim that this is inherently oppressive requires that the renter would not choose ownership if they had the means. Is it often an unfair, coercive dynamic? Yes. Do rent-seekers ruin everything? Yes. Do we need to villainize every single person who doesn’t donate their spare mother-in-law or inherited property to the homeless? No.
Sorry you do not understand class struggle then.
Class struggle is black and white. The interests of the working class are diametrically oppositional to those of the owning class. What enriches one oppresses the other.
I have no solidarity with those who willingly choose to oppress others because it is convenient within the current system to do so. I do not support the system of private property ownership and will make no excuses for it.
If you’re not using a home, then you should donate it instead of selling it for personal profits or hoarding it away so others who need it cannot utilize it. Those who do such things are villains in my eyes. No one should have that ability to begin with but, because people do, it becomes a choice whether to engage in the oppression of the system and benefit from it or to go against it for the betterment of our collective society.
It’s nuanced, dude. Part of class war is the optics and unless you want every empty-nester up against the wall with the BlackRock executives it’s not useful to paint with such a wide brush.
Many are. But I’ll stick my neck out here for when I rented in socal.
My landlord Randy was a retired dentist. He had built an ADU on his property in order to care for his very elderly mother. She had since passed away, leaving him with an empty mobile home in his backyard.
It sat empty for a few years, as his now-adult children and friends didn’t need it. He couldn’t sell it because of minimum plot size, setbacks, and utility issues.
I ended up renting from him for two years, and it was an excellent situation with reasonable rent and a great relationship.
I think a great many landlords are garbage, and I don’t think it’s possible to be a corporate landlord without being garbage. But there are some situations where a landlord is just a person who finds themselves in a situation where renting a space out makes the most sense. Open to other perspectives on this.
Landlords, by virtue of being a landlord, means their income is generated through rent seeking off the basic human necessity of shelter via simply “owning” the domicile that is being lived in by someone else through the system of private property ownership which is a core feature inherent to the unjust and oppressive capitalist economy.
By having their income be generated through simply having ownership over a means of survival makes them of the bourgeoisie/owning class and are inherently leeches off of those of the working class who must rent instead of own.
Landlords should not exist. Period.
I think they key counter-argument comes from your position “leeches off of those of the working class who must rent”. I agree with this! But it ignores people that want to rent for whatever reason, like living somewhere for a few years to attend university.
The only reason people want to rent is due to the inherent complications of the capitalist system making it unfeasible for those who fall underneath an arbitrary financial threshold to be able to own property plus the unnecessary complications that monetary systems cause in the exchanging said property.
Under a communal system of ownership. You can own the home for a few years while you live in it, under the rule of usufruct (use-based ownership), and once you are done the property returns to the community as a collective until someone else has need of it.
It doesn’t need to be any more complicated than that. But it is only because of the current systems we live under arbitrarily making this more complicated so that a few individuals (the owning class) can exploit these complications for profit and personal enrichment
Putting the cart before the horse here. We live in a capitalist society and people need temporary dwellings now, they can’t wait for a proletarian revolution and total restructuring of society.
Cool, but that has nothing to do with my point. I never said people should wait. I said landlords are leeches.
The fact that people can’t wait and the current system leaves them with no other alternative other than to be leeched on by someone who withholds private ownership over their home is an inherently oppressive situation to be in.
I just think your point is too black-and-white. In the current system there exists people who want temporary housing and people who own more housing than they require and are willing to let others use it for a mutually agreeable payment. Your claim that this is inherently oppressive requires that the renter would not choose ownership if they had the means. Is it often an unfair, coercive dynamic? Yes. Do rent-seekers ruin everything? Yes. Do we need to villainize every single person who doesn’t donate their spare mother-in-law or inherited property to the homeless? No.
Sorry you do not understand class struggle then. Class struggle is black and white. The interests of the working class are diametrically oppositional to those of the owning class. What enriches one oppresses the other.
I have no solidarity with those who willingly choose to oppress others because it is convenient within the current system to do so. I do not support the system of private property ownership and will make no excuses for it.
If you’re not using a home, then you should donate it instead of selling it for personal profits or hoarding it away so others who need it cannot utilize it. Those who do such things are villains in my eyes. No one should have that ability to begin with but, because people do, it becomes a choice whether to engage in the oppression of the system and benefit from it or to go against it for the betterment of our collective society.
It’s nuanced, dude. Part of class war is the optics and unless you want every empty-nester up against the wall with the BlackRock executives it’s not useful to paint with such a wide brush.