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Most Americans will never understand that housing would still exist without landlords. They have been convinced that landlords are like delivery drivers, a necessary part of the chain of production. "It won't get to my table without the landlords to deliver it!"
"[Landlords] are the only one of the three orders whose revenue costs them neither labour nor care, but comes to them, as it were, of its own accord, and independent of any plan or project of their own. That indolence, which is the natural effect of the ease and security of their situation, renders them too often, not only ignorant, but incapable of that application of mind." - Adam Smith
What are the other two?
to those who live by rent, to those who live by wages, and to those who live by profit.
The house was not built by its owner. It was erected, decorated, and furnished by innumerable workers--in the timber yard, the brick field, and the workshop, toiling for dear life at a minimum wage.
The money spent by the owner was not the product of his own toil. It was amassed, like all other riches, by paying the workers two-thirds or only a half of what was their due.
Moreover--and it is here that the enormity of the whole proceeding becomes most glaring--the house owes its actual value to the profit which the owner can make out of it. Now, this profit results from the fact that his house is built in a town possessing bridges, quays, and fine public buildings, and affording to its inhabitants a thousand comforts and conveniences unknown in villages; a town well paved, lighted with gas, in regular communication with other towns, and itself a centre of industry, commerce, science, and art; a town which the work of twenty or thirty generations has gone to render habitable, healthy, and beautiful.
A house in certain parts of Paris may be valued at thousands of pounds sterling, not because thousands of pounds' worth of labour have been expended on that particular house, but because it is in Paris; because for centuries workmen, artists, thinkers, and men of learning and letters have contributed to make Paris what it is to-day--a centre of industry, commerce, politics, art, and science; because Paris has a past; because, thanks to literature, the names of its streets are household words in foreign countries as well as at home; because it is the fruit of eighteen centuries of toil, the work of fifty generations of the whole French nation.
Who, then, can appropriate to himself the tiniest plot of ground, or the meanest building, without committing a flagrant injustice? Who, then, has the right to sell to any bidder the smallest portion of the common heritage?
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/kropotkin/conquest/ch6.html
Just the first line raises so many basic social questions:
Do all the workers who contributed to the building of the home own it? If so, do they all get to live in it? If not, must they then communally determine who lives in it? How would that be organized? Majority opinion? A reversion to primitive village social structures? What's the purpose of supposing they get a minimum wage? What does it change about their contribution if they were highly paid by the owner? If you admit that their labor was commoditized to build the house, and they were compensated by the owner according to the socially agreed value of their work, then what does it matter if the owner didn't build it and why does that prevent the owner from claiming it as his private property? What if the owner overpaid them - i.e paid each the amount it would cost to commission laborers to build their own similar home? Are they then self-exploiting if they use the money their labor earned to buy the labor of others to build homes?
Most of your questions are answered in the chapter I linked. It's a good read, check it out. Obviously, the whole ordeal Kropotkin describes would require ingenuity, and patience, and M U T U A L A I D.
99% of questions about libsoc theory were asked and answered 100 years ago in that one book alone haha
If by "ingenuity and patience" you mean divine intervention, maybe. What he describes is spontaneous abolition of rent followed by well-meaning volunteers creating statistics for use in a program that would determine who gets to live in what house. It's laden with romantic claims about the selflessness and infallibility of the masses, and a rosy view of the Paris Commune typical of the times.
If you actually read the book, you'd know how silly most of the things you just said are, especially about the Paris Commune. But I appreciate you sharing your opinion :)
edit: btw, its called conquest of bread. good stuff, check it out. you dont need to agree with it, but its a great intro to learning about some of the moral philosophies behind anarchy and communism and why they surged in the late 19th and early 20th century
I know its name and I read it years ago. It's filled with silly propositions. And what I said about the Pairs Commune is actually uncontroversial. It was in fact greatly romaniticized by Europe's dissident left.
Only one in my building who is getting a reasonable rate right now. Granted I live in Florida and most of my neighbors moved in mid covid.
To be fair, if you were to buy or build a house it won't cost you any less.
Right, but at least it will be your house. Instead of paying someone else's mortgage and coming out of it with nothing for yourself.
I'm not defending landlords here — just pointing out that housing is expensive right now regardless of who owns it. Construction costs are through the roof (no pun intended) even before factoring in a profit margin for the builder and/or the landlord. If I had to rebuild my house today it would cost at least 3x what I paid for it 15 years ago, and my income hasn't tripled since then.
The things is, its expensive because of landlords and shit like airbnd. They have shrunk the market which increases the value of whats left in the market. Landlords are the reason why housing is unaffordable. Which puts you at their doorstep to rent from them.
Landlords are definitely not the reason that new construction is so much more expensive. They want the lowest possible construction cost, not the highest.
Have you considered that the reason labor prices have increased is because the cost of living has increased so much, primarily driven by housing prices?
Eh... Contractors are charging what they are charging now because they can, not necessarily because materials and labor costs justify it. I've been slowly rehabbing my basement this year, and I'm doing most of the work myself because the quotes I've been getting to have somebody do it for me are so steep that about half the time they would cover me setting up a whole competing company from scratch in addition to material costs. That's not an exaggeration. For what the plumber wanted for a repipe I could buy all the tools I need, attend training, get certification and a license, set up an LLC, and go into business for myself, and still have enough money left over to cover my costs on the project.
Not that I think all that profit is going into the pockets of the tradespeople doing the work, well compensated as they are, but at the end of the day it's down to high demand and a shortage of skilled labor due to decades of us devaluing the trades as a career. If I'm in the top third of the income distribution and the only reason I can afford to maintain my very modest house is because I have the skillset to do it by myself, something's gone haywire.
Corporate landlords are absolutely driving the prices up, combined with 3 decades of low interest and investors treating real estate like a speculative market. The material cost of housing is miniscule. North American homes are made out of paper and plywood.
As a former homeowner who is now renting again after moving across the country, you lose a lot renting.
So many small and large details of my home I built for me that if I add to my apartment will only serve to let the landlord raise the rent later and/or evict me to find someone willing to pay more for my own additions.
It’s less about what you spend and more about freedom, control, and who benefits from caring for the property.
Also modern apartments are turning every aspect of living into add-on subscriptions. Pet rent, parking fee, ev charging fee, even gym fees are popping up now
Thank god some federal laws changed that blocked landlords from bundling specific cable and internet providers. That was horrible the first time we moved west and found that your building controlled what services you could even buy.