this post was submitted on 21 May 2024
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Lefty Memes

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An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of the "ML" influence of instances like lemmy.ml and lemmygrad. This is a place for undogmatic shitposting and memes from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 6 months ago (1 children)

It is an asymmetric relationship. The landlord only cares if a tenant can be trusted to pay rent and not trash the place. On the other hand, the tenant is getting a service (shelter and upkeep) from the landlord.

Like other service providers, an aggregate rating is probably more appropriate. Some people are fine as long as they have a roof and indoor plumbing while others rate 1-star if the water takes a minute to warm up. Some tenants care about kitchen appliances while others care about an updated bathroom. Some like to be woken up by the first rays of sun while others want a dark room to sleep in. It is important for tenants to both get a good aggregate of a landlord's quality but also understand if the landlord's faults are ones that they care about.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Being a landlord is morally wrong. Shelter is a human right, not a service. The service that they provide is not calling the cops to evict you so long as you pay them. They don't otherwise provide you with anything.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

So, grocery stores are morally wrong? I mean, food is a human right, isn't it? What about hotels?

Providing a necessary service in exchange for money isn't morally wrong.

Not everyone wants to own property. It's a huge financial liability, and a pain in the ass, tbh. I actually know people who sold their homes and moved into apartments because they were sick of the time and money required to upkeep a house.

While there are absolutely landlords who are immoral, especially corporate landlords, saying that being a landlord is inherently immoral is just incorrect.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I do agree that grocery stores are morally wrong in some sense yes. People should not have to lend their bodies in order to eat. Hotels aren't morally wrong entirely, because they're only providing a place to stay temporarily. If they did provide long term stay and charged for it than yes that would be morally wrong. You'll note that I'm an anarchist.

There is no such thing as a moral landlord. And the people you're talking about downsized. The landlord does not do repairs, he hires handyman and trades workers to do repairs. The landlord collects a tax from you while giving you nothing in return. My rent is twice the monthly cost of a mortgage for a mini home in my area.

When you have a mortgage the money isn't gone when you spend it, it's used to pay off your loan. When you're done you own the property.

I will never own this property. None of my money is returned to me. It is taken by a person or entity who literally does not provide me anything.

I'll repeat, providing shelter isn't a service. What the landlord is providing you, is not evicting you so long as you provide them a taxation of your wages that goes straight into their pocket. If all landlords died overnight nothing would materially change except for all the people renting could now keep their wages, and hire the handyman to do the work themselves. Housing co-ops also cover the costs of upkeep by pooling money to spend. No, landlords are 100% immoral 100% of the time and your buddy who's a good guy and a landlord might be a good guy but it has nothing to do with his being a landlord. Some cops save dying animals and volunteer at soup kitchens I'm sure, they're all still bastards by participating in a system of militarized state violence.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (2 children)

You must know nothing about owning a home if you think rent just goes straight into a landlord's pocket.

Also, dealing with contractors is a service that's being provided. Having to hire a contractor is often a pain in the ass.

Having both rented and owned, renting is much less stressful. You apparently don't see any value in not having to worry about maintenance, taxes, massive debt, liability, insurance, etc. which is fine, but that doesn't mean paying for it is a scam.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

My rent is 50% of my income I will never get back.

No, renting is literally incomparably more stressful than owning a home would be where I could sell it at any time and get a portion of my invested income back.

You sound like you're probably decently middle class. Which is fine and I'm not saying that you have no experience being a lower class renter. But you probably are not familiar with the same financial pressures we live under today.

Landlords should not exist. Nothing would be lost if we converted every apartment building into a co-op. We would all have much more disposable income and much more control over where we lived.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

You must know nothing about owning a home if you think rent just goes straight into a landlord's pocket.

Is the landlord making a profit? That comes from rent going into their pockets.

that doesn't mean paying for it is a scam.

Choosing to pay for it, sure. Most renters would rather own but can't because landlords have bought up a limited supply of a resource in order to profit off it. When scalpers do that they get vilified, but do that with something necessary for survival and for some reason it becomes an investment?

"People with more money than sense would rather pay someone else to do it" is not a good argument for forcing everyone else to also pay someone else to do it.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Oh my sweet summer child.

We'd all love to live in a socialist utopia where a house to live in is the right of all citizens, but sadly that's just not a reality here on planet earth.

"Shelter" may be a right, as in if you're destitute you'll get food and something to keep the rain off, but a nice house to live in is not a right.

Ultimately landlords are providing capital, which you need to pay for a nice house. Providing said capital is not in itself immoral.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

I wonder why so many people dismiss a better world as imaginary, when the thing that prevents such a world is, in fact, imaginary. We made up money. It is fake, imaginary, not fucking real. I can prove it too. You go into nature, and find me money. You can't. You can find currency, but not money. No animals have a damn mint. We made that shit up, and we can collectively decide that it doesn't matter.

Grow up and stop believing in the money fairy

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

What a silly thing to say.

Try telling someone who is destitute that money is imaginary and see how they react.

Even if we could collectively decide that it doesn't matter youre still going to need some between now and then.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Can you explain your last sentence? I don't see how landlords are providing capital, at all. If anything, landlords are depriving you of capital, and using your money (rent) to gradually gain capital (increase in ownership of property, through mortgage payment) for themselves.

But maybe I'm misreading you somehow.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Because if you had the capital to buy a house, you would. A landlord has the capital to purchase the house and rent it to you under more favorable terms. I.e., not putting ~20% down and committing to a 15-30 year loan.

What is the alternative (besides a utopian society where everyone is provided housing for free or near-free)?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Sorry, I know you're not the original poster, but that doesn't actually answer my question. The question is "what capital does a landlord provide?" and the answer is, none, because when we talk about capital in this context, we're talking ownership of money or assets.

The landlord does not provide either of these things, and in fact only takes them in order to increase their own personal wealth.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Landlord lets tenant use their capital in exchange for rent.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

That totally clarifies it, thank you. I was confused. Still, that does not increase the renter's capital, and puts them at a disadvantage, because as they lose capital, the landlord gains equity. That's where we were disconnected, but I see now how you were using the term.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The question is "what capital does a landlord provide?"

The capital needed to buy the house which the renter either doesn't have, or doesn't want to spend.

and the answer is, none, because when we talk about capital in this context, we're talking ownership of money or assets

I'm not even sure what you mean by this? The capital the landlord provides IS the money to buy the house and the asset (the house).

Just because the landlord makes money off the transaction? It's a transaction. The landlord is providing the risk of using their capital to purchase the home and the renter gains the ability to live there without having to extend their own capital to purchase the house (for whatever reason, maybe they don't have it, maybe they don't plan to live their long, maybe they are adverse to owning property, there's lots of reasons).

Why is it OK for any other business to make a profit from their risk and service they provide, but it's not OK for a landlord? The landlord is providing a service just like any other business.

I get the argument against large corporations buying mass amounts of land and driving up housing prices locking homeowners out of the ability to purchase land, but what is wrong with, if for example I have extra cash, am able to buy a home and rent it to someone who can't purchase a house for whatever reason?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Capital, as in ownership of money or assets that combine to a persons overall wealth -- A landlord does not provide this, and only takes it from the renter in order to increase their own capital. You can make an argument that a landlord provides a service, sure, but not that they provide capital, because they really don't. Maybe you mean they provide a means for a renter to accrue capital? Even then, that's shoddy, because you have to drill down to owners who actually care about their tenants vs those who charge as much as the market allows.

You can bring up risk, and sure, the landlord incurs risk. That risk is losing their property and becoming a renter. The "service" they provide is entirely dependent on their ownership of property, and I don't have much sympathy for a person who uses their ownership of property to exploit another person's need for shelter in the name of accruing more capital.

Those are kinda my quick thoughts, and I'm not totally prepared to defend the absolute shit out of them. My initial point was that landlords do not provide capital, and I stick by that.

To be clear, I don't think being a landlord automatically makes you a bad person, considering the economic system we live in. But I also don't think landlords provide a good, generally, to society. I don't think we need landlords, and I don't think they become landlords out of the kindness of their hearts, or that they wish to provide a home for someone. They just own more, and as such they can use that ownership to further increase their ownership. I don't think your example about you with extra cash is wrong in the context of the society we live in -- hell, I'm pretty much in that exact situation with my roommate, with whom I was renting before I bought a house. Sure, you could say I'm doing him a favor by letting him live in my house for a low cost, but mostly I am the one accruing capital at his expense. It doesn't make me a saint for doing that, it makes me greedy that I'm charging anything at all. That's part of the disgust I personally have for this system, is that we are all compelled to own more more more more. It's really not work hard and you'll succeed. It's own hard.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

The alternative of everyone living in communist bloc apartments built by the lowest bidder sounds so good.