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by maxmamis 1611 days ago
> Your example doesn’t really make sense - someone living paycheck to paycheck would default on a mortgage even if they got one. It’s for those people that renting makes the most sense.

you just made my point for me — there is a class of the population that is forced into spending a third (often more!) of their income on housing, which is being hoarded by another class. no different from a feudal serf being forced to turn over their hard-won harvest to the nobility. but sure, they can go find another manor to live on, they’re under no obligation to give their labor to this particular lord...
1 comments
thegrimmest 1611 days ago
So are you saying that people should not be allowed to.. accumulate capital? It's a bit of a radical thing to suggest. How did the landlord get the money to afford the building in the first place? Say he was a high-ranking professional or a successful entrepreneur and he used the capital he earned to buy a building - what's immoral here exactly?
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maxmamis 1611 days ago
it’s only “radical” from the narrow perspective of the last few hundred years of western capitalism.

> Say he was a high-ranking professional or a successful entrepreneur and he used the capital he earned to buy a building - what's immoral here exactly?

he’s using his capital to extract more wealth from those with fewer resources than himself. (that’s also how he accumulated the capital in the first place — but that’s another conversation.)

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thegrimmest 1611 days ago
> last few hundred years of western capitalism.

"Capitalism" is just liberty + private property. The idea of a free class of citizens has been around for millenia, and the idea of private ownership of property has been around for longer. Property owners and tenants have existed since the dawn of agrarian civilization.

The radical innovation of the last few centuries was the private, limited liability corporation, but that's not really the problem here is it?

> he’s using his capital to extract more wealth from those with fewer resources than himself.

As every living thing competing with other living things in an environment of material scarcity has done since life began.

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