this post was submitted on 21 May 2024
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Capital, as in ownership of money or assets that combine to a persons overall wealth -- A landlord does not provide this, and only takes it from the renter in order to increase their own capital. You can make an argument that a landlord provides a service, sure, but not that they provide capital, because they really don't. Maybe you mean they provide a means for a renter to accrue capital? Even then, that's shoddy, because you have to drill down to owners who actually care about their tenants vs those who charge as much as the market allows.
You can bring up risk, and sure, the landlord incurs risk. That risk is losing their property and becoming a renter. The "service" they provide is entirely dependent on their ownership of property, and I don't have much sympathy for a person who uses their ownership of property to exploit another person's need for shelter in the name of accruing more capital.
Those are kinda my quick thoughts, and I'm not totally prepared to defend the absolute shit out of them. My initial point was that landlords do not provide capital, and I stick by that.
To be clear, I don't think being a landlord automatically makes you a bad person, considering the economic system we live in. But I also don't think landlords provide a good, generally, to society. I don't think we need landlords, and I don't think they become landlords out of the kindness of their hearts, or that they wish to provide a home for someone. They just own more, and as such they can use that ownership to further increase their ownership. I don't think your example about you with extra cash is wrong in the context of the society we live in -- hell, I'm pretty much in that exact situation with my roommate, with whom I was renting before I bought a house. Sure, you could say I'm doing him a favor by letting him live in my house for a low cost, but mostly I am the one accruing capital at his expense. It doesn't make me a saint for doing that, it makes me greedy that I'm charging anything at all. That's part of the disgust I personally have for this system, is that we are all compelled to own more more more more. It's really not work hard and you'll succeed. It's own hard.