More descriptive title next time please :)
Didn't see anything in the about section requiring a descriptive title, mighy want to put something there if a descriptive title is required for posting on this instance...
Firstly, even without rules 'yup' is a terrible post title.
Also if you look at every other post in this community, just try and do something similar. Even a single relevant word is fine.
It helps to know youre human and worth my time reading... but ehhh.. whatever
Even the best monarchs do not justify monarchy; it is a position inherently created for abuse. You may have a good king, or two, or ten - even kings who WILL put your wellbeing before their own interests - but invariably they will always be outnumbered by those who seek the position for the sake of abuse, or who succumb to the structure of the position which encourages abuse. Likewise with landlording. The problem isn't with individuals, the problem is with the system.
The "benevolent king" is a persistent myth isn't it? They feature in so, so many works of fiction
It's a persistent myth because the institution is set up to perpetuate it. Everything bad is the nobles, the lords, the boyars, the merchants. But if the king, all-powerful and distant, only KNEW about these abuses...
If I can make decisions unilaterally, I'll be more efficient not having to seek as much agreement from stakeholders, as long as we assume I'll make good decisions.
I think benevolent dictatorship can exist but only for a couple generations at best, and that is also probably exceedingly rare.
Greed being a virtue these days and corruption running rampant probably lowers these odds.
And all rulers grades are still subject to whatever constraints and opportunities their situation places them in. Without Philip investing in army and drill, Alexander could never have done what he did. Also I'm sure having an external enemy to loot and enrich your people's is a big lever too.
I think the more interesting modern question is about democracy versus single party rule like CCP. If the big benefit of democracy is we get more and better ideas and efficiency through private industry, how does the Internet making all information globally free and the global economy change that? I fear democracy loses a lot of inherent advantage in the same way Chinese companies steal IP or copy other products.
They also have the efficiency similar to the dictators. They can much better execute 40 year plans without having to switch parties and priorities every decade. How does democracy beat that in the information age?
It's way worse than that. Any dictator (monarchs included) has to balance interests to keep their head. They literally can't distribute wealth more freely without their top general taking over.
Every landlord I've had has been "nice" and "friendly." Unless you need something or they're not happy with something you did.
Because they don't see you as a person ... they see you as either a benefit or detriment to their wealth. You are an extension of their wealth and their only interest is in watching to see if that wealth increases or decreases.
I think my landlord sees us as people, he's just fundamentally incapable of understanding what it means to live in a lower income bracket. He's selling the house we live in and seemed genuinely confused why we, as a single earner household paying significantly below market rent, would be worried because "there's only a few situations where they can kick you out". Yes and if they invoke one, which they will because we're a bad investment, we're SCREWED.
Meanwhile he thinks he's being generous by listing for below appraisal when it's still at least double what he paid a couple years ago. Just living on a totally different planet.
I mean yeah if they're assholes sure. And many (most?) are no doubt. Yet I have friends who are landlords and they're not fucking monsters or I wouldn't be friends with them.
I think this reductive take of yours feels good to type but if we want to address the problems of housing, I think a more nuanced understanding is needed.
If you're like a friend of mine, it's just a family that owns a couple extra houses (withholding judgment on that) and let's say the husband is out of work the wife makes like $50k/yr, and you're on the hook for two mortgages (say $5000) and now the sewer pipe to the sewer main needs replacing at a cost of $15,000, your car breaks and needs $1000 of repairs.
If it comes to it and you don't have the cash or credit to deal with it, nobody is going to prioritize the tenant's sewer over their kids having a house to live in and food to eat. When times are so desperate you have to choose, you're choosing your own family. (The assholes always choose themselves under all circumstances of course)
Idk wtf the answer is but housing is a human right and the idea that anyone should be unsheltered is fucked.
Both friends bought another house and rented their original. Some inherit a house. Because putting your money in savings like we used to in the 70s and 80s when you got rock solid perfectly safe 2-5% return hasn't been a thing for 20+ years.
Then you have corporations with the capital to be able to snap up houses after the 2008 predatory lending fiasco (thanks to unregulated capitalism). With low interest rates that ended up being the best play and then that ended up pricing out regular people.
Yeah we need more supply but the equation there doesn't really favor building affordable housing because reasons I don't understand well enough to try to talk to. Some claim too much regulation but that claim is usually the kind of bullshit that corpos/rich and their shills spout to be able to deregulate and better screw us peons. So I'm skeptical.
Idk what the solution is because I don't understand the very complex problem well enough. But I know that "landlords eat babies" isn't that helpful because the whole housing thing (rental, ownership) is a train wreck systemically.
If that's what you think, your life must suck ass. Landlord wants to pay their expense and that's it. If a tenants destroys the place or ask stupid shit all the time, that sucks. That's just being normal human being. Stop dehumanizing people.
You needing something is fair as it "should" be part of the agreement you have with the landlord. Even if unspecified, the landlord agreed to provide a place that is fully functioning and comfortable livable. So they can't removed if you need something.
On the other hand, you are renting their property and you agreed, even if unspecified, to care for their property during your stay and return it in the same state as you received it. You fucking up their shit in any way gives them the right to removed. Both scenarios are a breach of agreement, written or not.
PS: Landlords require tenants to get credit checks etc. in order to ensure that the tenant can pay. Tenants should have the right to require landlords to hold adequate insurance that would protect and accommodate the tenant.
My landlord lives in the same house as me. Things get fixed very quickly, especially when it comes to anything leaky. Might also be especially connected to their mother living one flat below mine.
landlord is just living within the system he was put in.
if you wanna hate someone stop hating the individual and hate the system that forces this behavior.
except THIS IS AMERICA we cant have beneficial economic decisions
I realize that I may be in the minority here, but I used to be a landlord. I never charged full market rate, and I always took care of my tenants. I never kept any security deposit money. One tenant had a breakup, and I showed up that evening with a locksmith to change her locks so he wouldn't be a problem. That cost me some money but it didn't cost her anything. I mean, they're paying for service you need to provide service.
And because of that, you made less money. A bastard landlord would make more money and be able to invest that money into buying more properties. Those properties would bring even more money, allowing them to buy even more property and so forth. This dynamic is why the vast majority of landlords (and capitalists in general) are bastards.
Capitalism is a system where the selfish and greedy will always triumph over the selfless and charitable. It is designed from the ground up to incentivize selfish behavior.
I was OK making less money. The place was paid for, no mortgage. The only reason I sold was because of our horrible medical system.
I remember people like you. It's always appreciated but eventually a corporation gets every building.
Sincerely thank you for being a good person in a harmfully flawed system. You probably won't get rewarded for it. Most likely you'll be punished for it. But someone out there probably thinks you're pretty cool for doing it.
That's not landlord/tenant that's just people/people.
People/people made worse by the system. The system that created the landlord/tenant roles.
Who wouldn’t put their income before your wellbeing when push came to shove?
In any of the systems we've tried since the species got agrarian—especially Capitalism whenever it's Fascism Hammer Time—not the average person that's for a certainty.
They're too busy surviving.
In a proper society where we (the collective We, but really ~2k dragons) used the same tools we used to separate us to instead expand the sense of the tribal umbrella so that the species innate selfish altruism could shine?
A whole lot more folks whose part would be exactly like in the fabric of society, comfortable and without a thought of want for they know We got their backs too.
But also many of them will make someone homeless just because they couldn't provide an extra ten percent of profit this year.
So yeah.
Almost all people will put their own well-being above yours. This isn't a trait exclusive to the upper-class.
Yeah if we're both in the same situation maybe but my income Vs your well-being is a different thing isn't it?
I can accept to be a bit less comfortable to help you live in less horrible conditions.
In an ideal world we'd all treat each other how we wish to be treated. I try to do that in every interaction, not always successfully. But we saw during covid that there are hundreds of millions of selfish-ass people. People that wouldn't even temporarily give up haircuts or Starbucks to potentially save someone's life. Hell man, they wouldn't even wear a thin piece of cloth across their mouth and nose to potentially save people's lives.
I guess I'm saying that I agree with you, but many people don't... at least not in practice.
That's true. However.
The owning class has interests directly opposed to the working class, which makes that "natural" trait toxic to the working class. In addition, the owning class has a lot more power.
Your landlord wants to make as much money as possible for as long as possible. (fair enough right?) The problem is that for that to happen
- demand needs to stay high or go higher which means that
- supply needs to stay low which means that (at the level of class interests, not personal belief)
Your landlord doesn't want new affordable housing to be built in your area. They want you to never own a house, never have any cheaper rent options. They don't want to have to keep renting to you at the price you are paying now.
They don't want to have to invest money in making your apartment/house safe or comfortable.
The problem is not that people will put their own wellbeing above yours, it's that their wellbeing is in conflict with yours. A conflict of interests between classes... class conflict... class warfare. And they have all the guns.
It doesn't have to be this way.You make some good points, but I'm confused by your statement that they have all the guns. Do you mean they control the police? I'm not sure where you live, but in the USA there are literally hundreds of millions of guns owned by the lower and middle class. In 2017, there was estimated to be near 400 million guns in the United States between police, the military, and American civilians. Over 393 Million (Over 98%) of those guns are in civilian hands, the equivalent of 120 firearms per 100 citizens.
My landlords wife yelled at the plumber for sealing our bathroom wall back up when the shower spigot was still leaking, and then her husband comes in and says "honey stop we don't need to pay to fix the valve if we don't have to". So my shower still leaks and they really fixed nothing because they didn't want to spend $1000 (less than half our rent) to redo the shower.
Wouldn't the leak cause more damage to their property over time?
It's hard to know what terms OP used correctly, but sounds like maybe the bath spigot is leaking a bit while the shower is on. If that's the case, it wouldn't cause damage to not fix, the shower water pressure would just suffer. And AFAIK, you wouldn't typically need access to inside the wall, unless they did something stupid and tiled in a way that you can't access the diverter stem nut to replace it.
IANAP, just DIY and have had to replace shower stems due to failing gaskets
That's true of literally any transactional relationship. Everyone is trying to get as much as they can for as little as possible. Including employees trying to get as much pay for as little work. It's normal.
Yeah. It also pretends like a landlords income isn't related to their wellbeing. In some cases it might not be, but for most mom and pop landlords it directly is.
Also: I'm a renter with zero interest in owning real estate. I know many people with rental properties (who are therefore landlords) that I am significantly wealthier than. A lot of people are struggling to pay rent and I get that, but believe it or not so are a lot of these land owners. So there's just a lot of unbridled rage towards against anyone they have to pay rent to, especially around here.
I think its clear that what we are seeing is the result of decades of exponential growth. No shit houses have quadrupled in price in the last generation or so, what do you think is going to happen with 10% ROI per year? That's just how it works. Not the landlords fault at all. Idk who to blame or how to fix it but, well, uh, there it is.
That's just a good thing to remember in general: no matter how good of a relationship you have with someone, whether it be a coworker or a friend, at the end of the day, most of them will put their own interest over yours.
Some of them won't, but they are rare.
If you want people to put you first, you just need to make it so that having you in their life makes their life better.
Be a better friend, coworker, team member, etc.
And stand up for yourself, so that people don't try to take advantage of you.
Know your worth and demand it from people.
They are also a bad person
True story.
For those interested I recommend Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson. An amazing breakdown of the history and why. Eye opener at the very least.
Edit: Curious: Why the down votes?
history of what
Class and caste systems.
And so will you.
Ah yes those pesky poors, looking out for themselves.
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X/Twitter post by user 🎇 K8 is a Danger to The Republic 🎇 @K84UnitedLeft reading:
"The point of class analysis isn't to say that your landlord is a bad person, it's to say that your landlord has class interests that directly oppose your own.
"They might not treat you like shit, but when push comes to shove they will put their income before your wellbeing."
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There sure are a lot of landlords on Lemmy.
A reasonable opinion on twitter? Is this from 10 years ago?
Where are all these single owner landlords? Everything here is owned by management companies and the 'landlord', more propertt manager, is an employee who gets a free rental unit to live in while they have the job.
In my country it's bad in a different way - there are no single owner landlords that actually manage their lads, they all hand it over to a management company.
I miss the days where you could find a landlord who was an old Italian dude who would manage it all himself. My parents had multiple rentals that was like that. One of them the landlord lived across the street. And all of them the properties were well maintained and we could actually get stuff fixed. And half the time we'd end up staying there 2-6 years longer than the lease agreement.
Now you can't find that to save your life, our current house, sure rent is comparatively low as we got in before the rental crisis. But they don't fix shit and when they do, it's half assed and dad ends up having to fix the fix.
The lack of communication and human connection between tenant and landlord results in problematic treatment and negligence. That connection honestly keept the landlord honest. We were friends with all our single owner self managed landlords, and any inspections we had usually meant cracking a beer in the backyard.
Can anybody link me to educational resources on class analysis?
Especially those pertaining to the United Kingdom, such as the big northern working class cities like Manchester.
Marxists.org has tons of great resources
The point of individualistic free market deal making is that it forces two people to find an overlap in their interests, then hold each other to operating within that overlap.
According to the theory of class interests, deals only happen when someone is being bamboozled. According to the theory of individual interests, deals happen when two people find an overlap in their interests.
I rent my house to a woman who worked as a server in a restaurant until Covid. When restaurants were forced to close she offered me half of the rent as that was all she had. I told her to keep it, not worry and stay safe. This was when there was still a lot of uncertainty. After 3 months she started paying me again without me asking. Do you think I'm a terrible person?
Your missing the point, this is about structural incentives and class interests not individuals. The structural incentives of landlords are to keep or even raise rents, even during times of hardship. You are incentivised to take her half rent or even charge ther full rent and put her in debt because you can and it would give you the most money. You chose not to act on those incentives because your not evil but relying on people to not be horrible for an issue as crucial as housing is not a good system. We need to remake the system so these perverse incentives don't exist, and that will require getting rid of landlords because they as a class, not individuals, have bad incentives tied to their place in the system.
This was incredibly well said. I have always struggled with phrasing when talking about this issue and I like how you've worded it.
You are a terrible landlord. I would have evicted and found somebody who could pay full price, and kept her security deposit to cover the transition. I doubt you are as successful of a landlord as me because you make foolish business decisions.
Username checks out
You are a landlord, you have to be evil /s
That's why having a good relationship with the landlord or your renter is just good for everyone.
I'm struggling to understand this. What class of human puts other people before their own income? I'm not a landlord and I'm not putting my income in jeopardy to help a hobo out.
Of all the anti-landlord arguments this has to be one of the dumbest. Of course a person is going to try to protect their income. I'm not a landlord but I'm not going to let anyone jeopardize my job.
Collecting rent as an income is different than having a job.
So?
"They might not treat you like shit, but when push comes to shove they will put their income before your wellbeing." Yes, you know, just like any business. Just like you do for them. Would you pay them extra rent to improve THEIR wellbeing? No? Why would you expect the opposite?
Just because you have a more personalized relationship with your landlord than the McDonalds down the street, why would you expect that they let you stay in their house for free when you lose your job? Do you expect McD's to give you a free meal if you walk in after you've lost your job? For a month? For 6 months?
I own a 2nd house across the street from mine that I rent to my parents. After I pay mortgage, taxes, and insurance, I probably lose about ~$100 each month in that arrangement. (This is cash flow. Increasing equity means I'm making money overall, but not a ton). I charge them $3000 per month which is actually below market rate here and they have good retirement savings so they can easily afford it.
If they were a normal tenant and they quit paying mortgage I would lose $3k out of pocket each month. $18k if they didn't pay rent for 6 months. $36k if not for a full year. For my parents I would just eat those costs. It would hurt, but I would get by. Do you all expect that I should do that for any random person I'm renting the house to? Should I also continue working for my boss also if he quits paying me? Do you pay rent for your neighbor if he loses his/her job?
I really don't get the landlord is evil view. The landlord has an asset (a building and property) and they're renting it out. It's a business, just like if they're a restaurant or a construction company. Unless they have a monopoly on the land and buildings in your area, I don't see how they're any more evil than the other businesses you're dealing with every day.
Landlords individually may not be evil, but the landlording class is opposed to the working class. Like you said landlording is a business and they will try to get as much rent out of you as possible, and in turn the tenant will try and pay as little rent as possible. This is class conflict. Any person, or structure or system your in conflict with over basic necessities like housing you may call evil, if your inclined to the good and evil morality view.
The critique of landlords is that they are a small, wealthy and powerful class extracting wealth from a larger and poorer class while not actually producing anything. They don't produce housing, they just use their capital to buy it and then rent it out. McDonald's may be taking money from the poor but at least they're producing the burgers they sell.
Something like 3/4 of houses are getting bought up by instant cash offer corporations who sell in bundles to venture capitalist backed renting corporations.
So yes. They have an effective monopoly. Oh and they've also been caught working together to raise prices. Nobody is mad at the landlord renting out the second place at cost.
Where are you getting your numbers? At best corporations buy up 25% (according to online statistics), but the statistics say "investors" buy up 25%, not corporations. For example, i bought a 2nd house to rent to my parents so that would be considered "bought by an investor" I think. I think the boogieman investor-purchases are overstated from what I've seen. Do you have anything you can point at that can back up your numbers?
I'm not going to pretend that I'm on the side of the landlords here, but I don't think individuals who own and rent out a few properties are part of the problem. In fact, there should be more people like that.
I think it's the large corporations owning tons of properties across multiple cities or even countries that are the issue. Houses shouldn't be treated as financial products or investment vehicles for massive entities, they are places for people to live. It's insane to have more empty houses than homeless people, there is no justifying that. I think requiring companies to have local offices in the cities they have properties would go a long way to address this.
I'm currently trying to convince the company that manages my current place that yes, they do have our insurance and to please stop charging us fees. They want insurance with both my wife and I 's names on it. I've submitted it 3 times over the last couple of months, and I swear they only read the top name on the paperwork and reject it.
Best comment. Thanks 👍
