this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2025
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This would be a quality post on r/ancap101 if I was not banned.
I may misunderstand this, but this makes it sound like houses grow on trees and require no human labour to construct
This is true of the bricks, mortar, plumbing etc... but a plurality of the cost of a house (espacily in cities, and espacily in developed countries) is location value, so the plot of land, as well as the purely legal right to build a house on that land.
In my (pretty rural) local area, the cheapest livable houses will go for £180-200,000, whilst a similarly sized plot of land will go for £80-100,000 with planning permission, £5-20,000 if there is no hope of getting planning permission (woodland) and a dilapadated structure in need of complete rebuild will go for £125,000. The actual cost of constructing a house is pretty small, and were it not for land hoarding and the town-and-country planning act (which exists mainly to protect the interests of landholders) a self-build would be within the reach of even minimum wage workers, and wouldn't even require a loan if done by professional workers.
That's not to mention landlords exist in the commercial world as well as the residential. A storefront in a major city can cost thousands of dollars a day to rent. Virtually all of the "farmers" you see hopping about in tractors are actually farmhands paying some guy significant portions of the profit for the right to dirt that has been there since before the human race. Mining rights make people ___illionaires, even if they never actually set shovel to stone.
Hence many classical economists, most notably Henry George, argued for a land-improvement split, and the value of the land to be made public good through taxation.
The landlord statistically neither builds the house nor funds it's construction.
Bridges require no specific rent but require human labor. Maybe we just do that, but with housing.
If I buy a house, I don't fund it's construction?
Bridges are either owned by governments or private companies, and various bridges do require rent (hello toll booth).
I have little issues with land Lords that happen to have one or two extra houses as long as the rents are controlled by governments. Anything beyond those few extra houses should be controlled through taxes. Only government controlled foundations should be able to "own" thousands of houses to rent out, that shit should not be for a private company
No, you don't. Unless you specifically ordered it to be built, you can funded nothing. The vast majority of landlords are investors hoarding assets. They contribute nothing to society.
Bridges are nearly always funded and owned by governments, and done so through taxes. Toll roads and bridges are a product of capitalism, using state funds to eliminate all costs and allowing profit from something the owning company never paid for (besides the bribes).
Landlords are an example of rot inherent to capitalism. The idea you are entitled to someone else's work, and are entitled to guaranteed profits. Besides actual jobs like innkeepers, it shouldn't be allowed in society.
If no one is allowed to own a domicile in a residential zone intended for one or more people unless they personally reside there at some given point in a year, the prices of houses would be pretty agreeable, and then yes, people would be paying mortgages, which also means they'd own all the equity they are buying into while they live there. Landlords provide nothing but more exploitation of people already exploited to death.
I'm a renter because i need short term housing less than a year and large apartment complexes seem to satisfy my needs alright ish. Would it be better if it was owned by investments from the people who live there long term? Dunno, sounds like a way to gatekeep poor people out who can't buy a share.
There is a space in-between landlord-owned-apartment and individual-owned-condo called a co-op where the residents own the apartment building and pay a share of the operating costs and get a say in how the building is run.
There’s a variety of ways they can be run, but they are typically cheaper than normal renting in the long term, and can be competitive with renting in terms of the up-front cost.
I do not believe co-op housing bylaws/elected leaders generally are supportive of rentals shorter than 13 months. They generally value long-term stability so they have policies that require longer leases. Of course there may be housing co-ops run by students or seasonal workers so they support short term leases, but that's a minority of housing co-ops. (This argument is very poorly researched).
This is a Lemmy comment section. Actual legislation could surely provide a good middle ground. Rental units offer valuable resource to a very specific minority of people, so they shouldn't necessarily disappear. But in my region, 42% of people rent a home. There is no reason for nearly half of the population to be living in a temporary residence. Everyone I know who rents has lived within the same 10 mile radius their entire adult lives.
Imagine a world where you didnt have to be a slave to capital for the right to live, truly horrifying (for capitalists)
You want to change the system? I don't get it, within the current system that wouldn't work. /s
Shudder
I get the joke, but I still feel compelled to point out that the alternative is affordable housing (both with rentals and ownership). If congress has the power to cap Baseball salaries, certainly they have the power to cap housing costs. Now we just need to figure out how to get them to do it.
Affordable? It's an improvement over the status quo, sure, but what'd be even better is decommodified housing.
First step would be to get Wallstreet out of the landlord business.
Make it illegal for anyone other than an individual human to own a house. Make it illegal to own more than three houses. Make it illegal to own houses in more than two states
Alternatively, We The People could start burning down real estate investment companies like our forefathers would have
If idiots were a commodity, this would be our gold rush
Social housing
I feel like someone didn’t get the sarcasm.
Or were they just playing off it 🤔
We'll never know
What's with the whole anti-sarcasm thing? What's the alternative? People are just supposed to go around expressing sincere opinions like rubes??
Yes.