It's not just a westerner thing, look at China before Mao's reforms. Look at parts of South Africa now. Feudal economic conditions lead to this kind of rent seeking behaviour being taken to the extreme. It's why Adam Smith hated landlords so much, the whole point of capitalism, to those that actually belive in it, is that's it's a progression from feudalism. So this kind of extreme rent seeking behaviour should not be a part of capitalism, according to what I refer to as utopian and idealistic capitalists. However, in actually existing capitalism, neo feudal economic conditions are recreated over time as the rate of profit falls. Which leads to this kind of behaviour and landlord worship.

[–] usernamesaredifficul@hexbear.net 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The Chinese landlords pre Mao were more feudal lords than people renting out residential properties

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

So were the people Smith calls "landlords," (who were generally renting land for farming, not shelter, as they also did in China). His point stands, it's just a different type of rent extraction.

[–] aaaaaaadjsf@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago

And the people renting out residential properties are becoming more and more feudal in their tactics as time passes. Like in this post about the guy subdividing his apartment in Poland, to take advantage of a refugee crisis with the war next door.