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Get rid of landlords...
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 22 Apr 2024
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Didn't Qaddafi get rid of landlords?
End result was a housing shortage. Renting isn't always a great option but it's a better option than being homeless. Removing a less than ideal option doesn't automatically result in a better option magically appearing out of nowhere.
You see little Lisa, in the real world making extreme economic changes can cause unintended repercussions.
Qaddafi was eventually brutally murdered for implementing policies based on lame brained slogans.
Qaddafi was murdered because he refused to sell Hydrocarbons to west powers, especially France, if he did he would still be alive
Oh, ffs, are we doing Kaddafi revisionism now? He was a fucking lunatic that kept power by murdering thousands. That may or may not been at the behest of the usual suspects, but he was no saint.
Both can be true. The big powers don't mind murderous lunatics, so long as they export some sweet hydrocarbons and keep the violence directed at their own people or people the big power in question doesn't like. Note I didn't limit that sentiment to the west.
This contradicts in no way the comment you were replying to
Someone is (you)
Landlords create housing in the same way scalpers create tickets: They don't.
The houses are built, the work is done.
Well yeah but who pays for the work that's required to build a house ?
The people who live in it.
Not a person who owns a piece of paper that says they own it.
I have so many questions...
If you built a house, lived there for 50 years, and then wanted to live somewhere else, what happens to the house? Can you sell it to someone else?
What if you only lived there for 5 years? Or 5 days?
Or... what if I want to go on holidays for a year and then come back to the house I built? Am I allowed to rent it while I'm gone?
I think this is the disconnect.
We have legitimate rental use cases. During college, owning a house would have made little sense since I had no idea where my life would take me. If someone is on an overseas assignment for 3 months, buying a house would be nuts.
On the other hand, out of state companies have bought every house in my neighborhood that has come up for sale over the past 5 years. The tenants I have talked to are there not because their arrangements should be temporary, but because all housing stock is purchased by companies.
So yes, there should be some medium-term rental for certain cases between days to a couple years long. It should not however smother even the possibility of home ownership for people with longer term plans.
Great questions!
Yep, you can sell it* to someone else. Or it'll just sit there and then I would advocate for some kind of common sense squatters law to take effect.
Short answer: See 1; long answer: you could find somewhere run by e.g. a housing co-op, or a (long-stay) hotel, or a property management company* and stay there.
Yes I'd be fine with that, caveats:
Note: All my answers involve exchanging some kind of value (indicated by *) for money, and that's my key point. If you're actually contributing something then I have no problem with that. But that's not what being a landlord is. A few ways this is evident:
Now, the water can get muddied when people are both landlords and do the other jobs (e.g. cleaning), but it's pretty easy to think of other examples of this:
I also skim money out of the register, but I also get paid to work in the store. In both cases (rent seeking and skimming) I'm making money, but not actually adding any value.
Or, to my original example: Scalping tickets. I'm not putting on the show, I'm not the talent, or involved with the venue, I'm not printing or shipping the tickets. I'm not doing anything except gaming the system to make money.
Just like robbing a bank, just like ponzi schemes, and just like Sam Bankman-Fried: Gaining money, not adding value (aka creating wealth).
The only difference is we decided (as a society) some are legal, and some are illegal, and I have a good idea why (see Figure 1.).
Sorry, this is just semantics. You're defining "landlord" to include everything that's wrong with capitalism in your particular area, while saying some types of ownership are ok by you.
Being a landlord does not necessarily imply rent seeking.
Being a "landlord" and deriving rent is an inevitable component of life in contemporary society. Like anything, it's problematic when excessive and greedy, but in general it's just part of a healthy economy.
How would you defined a what a landlord does, then?
I'm happy to use a different word if that would help, but whatever you call it, there is a structure in place that allows people who own property to make money by doing nothing. Call it 'land lording', call it 'passive income'.
Yes, but only if it's:
a. Legal, and: b. Some people can accumulate enough wealth to buy up multiple properties, and: c. Some people are too poor to afford any property (or qualify for financing).
Which is the situation we're in.
Well we can agree on this. But I'd go further and say that's always going to be the case, because:
a. Housing isn't something you can opt out of. b. The people who own the homes have all the bargaining power. c. The more money you can accumulate through renting the more power you have.
That's not actually true. They're providing capital. You can call that unfair and invent a new economic system to disallow it or whatever but the inescapable reality is that since the dawn of agriculture controlling land has always required wealth.
We started off by saying that the people that live in a place pay for it to be built, but we skipped over the part where the building needs to happen up front before you can start to live there and it must be paid as a lump sum. We also skipped the part where many people want to use the same land for the same purpose which creates demand thereby increasing costs.
This stuff costs money. Lots of it. Many or most people just don't have it. People with money are always going to derive interest and rent from people who don't have money.
You can complain about landlords all you like, but it doesn't change these immutable facts.
The USSR and China were much more widespread examples of eliminating landlords, both were vastly successful. They were third world countries with terrible conditions, both became global superpowers, all-the-while providing housing at a vastly more reasonable rate.
China has since regressed on this, and they're starting to feel housing troubles as landlords destroy the housing market through scalping, but for a long period they were improving.
The best example is probably the USSR during the 70s. Still a country with vastly less wealth than America, recently developed into a global superpower, but still was providing housing to citizens at an average of 5% of their income. America has been operating very consistently in the 30-80% range for a long time.
I think Cuba is a better example of this, even though it is a tiny country.
The only people who are homeless in Cuba are those who choose to be. Other than that, they have managed to provide housing for all of their population even despite the harsh sanctions and lack of resources that Cuba has compared to other countries.
I am not saying Cuba is perfect or anything, but it really shows how countries like the US have the resources to solve the housing problem.
Indeed in Cuba they closed the border with us to stop immigration of us citizens going there to exploit the free housing...
Oh wait it was Cubans going to US, sorry I had it the wrong way
The USSR is by definition a second world country
Correct, notice my phrasing. They were third world countries, they became global superpowers. Never even used the phrase first world country.
Okay, I can see where you are coming from, but as far as I know, the terms "first/second/third world country" originate from the cold war, where USA (+Allies?) were named first world countries, USSR was second world and the rest was third world.
The usage of "third world" as derogatory is maybe a more recent thing, but it's kinda ironic calling an original second world country a third world country
When did China become a global superpower?
Is this a joke?
No, they're just stupid.
Go ahead and type "top gdp by country" into Google. Or "un veto countries". I think those basically qualify you for super power status.
I guess I was still thinking of the Cold War-era "superpower" definition lol
Keep going guys I need at least 50 downvotes for that
Yeah, you'd never see a housing shortage in a place like the U.S...
https://www.npr.org/2024/02/17/1229867031/housing-shortage-zoning-reform-cities