this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2023
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I'll say it once and I'll say it again. Even the father of capitalism thought landlords were parasitic leeches on the economy. Even the father of capitalism hated landlords
Making an investment out of a necessity is immoral any way you cut it.
Health should be public.
Food needs to turn a profit, that's understandable, but also food food is not finite where the rich can hoard it all... Or maybe that's their next thing π€ nah won't happen because it's perishable
That's what the capital is for. Why hoard something that rots and can't be easily moved around? Capital knows no borders and actually increases in value just by moving it around.
It's basically an infinite food hack, but not just for food - for everything
He also argued that his system was best used to build the market up in the short term, and be eased out of in the long term.
What's the alternative? Not defending landlords; I genuinely don't understand. If you don't have money to buy a home/condo, you're going to have to rent from someone. Until housing is not subject to scarcity, there will always be landlords.
Most mortgages are lower than rent.
But due to overinflated housing prices banks refuse mortgages for the poors.
If housing prices matched the actual monetary value mortgages would be more accessible for the average person.
If you want to rent go to a hotel.
If so many jobs didn't stupidly require college degrees and if college wasn't stupidly expensive and if wages had kept up with production for the last 50+ years and if corporations werent allowed to own vast swaths of housing and if the world wasn't run by greedy power hungry capitalists then maybe, just maybe, PERHAPS people might have a few extra bucks to be able to afford something.
Just a thought. Maybe, the issue is money has been taken from the people in so many ways.
The government/social housing
If something is a need then itβs provided through taxes
Henry George wrote about this extensively. The solution is a tax on all land at just under 100% of it's rental value. That allows landlords to profit from the structures they build and maintain, but not from the land itself. It disincentivizes real estate speculation, lowering the cost of land and housing and improving accessibility to people who use it productively.
housing cooperatives
social housing
banning private rental so that more people can afford to buy.
in approximately that order of priority
Two (current) real world solutions: Most people in China outright own their homes with no mortgage, as the government owns the land itself and subsidizes housing purchases and even outright gives housing to its citizens. Similarly, most people in Singapore live in subsidized government housing.
I might be wrong, but I think even if you changed nothing else about society except abolishing landlording, supply and demand would drive down home costs and force banks to offer mortgages to the people they currently deny. Ideally though, abolishing landlording would be part of a larger change to the way housing works.
You ever think about how weird most housing is?
Suburbia is lines of houses with the same items in them not being used. Full of people who become petty tyrants comparing about a car being parked to close or a yard not neat enough.
If you start to question how we should live together it's easier to see a way for landlords to cease to exist.
Capitalism was meant to prevent wealth
Adam Smith saw the nobility with more money than the workers (craftsmen) so he came up with a system that pays based on hours put in
In a capitalist society everyone makes the same amount per hour and itβs just the one who works the most. There can also be no inheritance because that is profiting off someone elseβs work
That is to say; no shit he hated land lords