Reason I’m asking is because I have an aunt that owns like maybe 3 - 5 (not sure the exact amount) small townhouses around the city (well, when I say “city” think of like the areas around a city where theres no tall buildings, but only small 2-3 stories single family homes in the neighborhood) and have these houses up for rent, and honestly, my aunt and her husband doesn’t seem like a terrible people. They still work a normal job, and have to pay taxes like everyone else have to. They still have their own debts to pay. I’m not sure exactly how, but my parents say they did a combination of saving up money and taking loans from banks to be able to buy these properties, fix them, then put them up for rent. They don’t overcharge, and usually charge slightly below the market to retain tenants, and fix things (or hire people to fix things) when their tenants request them.
I mean, they are just trying to survive in this capitalistic world. They wanna save up for retirement, and fund their kids to college, and leave something for their kids, so they have less of stress in life. I don’t see them as bad people. I mean, its not like they own multiple apartment buildings, or doing excessive wealth hoarding.
Do leftists mean people like my aunt too? Or are they an exception to the “landlords are bad” sentinment?
The answer, which should be obvious, is that workers produce housing. How do you insert landlords into that process in a way that isn’t parasitic?
Who pays the workers and buys the materials? Whose land does this happen on?
You are referring to private employers and landowners who are also parasitic and non-essential to housing production.
Clearly you don’t have a solution for bringing housing into being except an utterly dangling magical notion that “workers will create it” with no answers to where, out of what, and while eating what.
You just keep calling different economic actors “parasites” without describing exactly what it is you think they are feeding on which could stand on its own.
You can smear paid employment, land ownership, and property ownership all you want but these are pretty big features in our economy and unless you have something better to answer with, sweeping them away does nothing.
So try replying in an affirmative mode where you don’t just call something parasitic but describe how you really think it will work, and be a little more thorough than just one microscopic part of it. Because my dude, workers create housing today.
