3 ms·
In my ideal world property is decommodified and the rentier class is eliminated, yes. Attempting to reach that arrangement via polite means does introduce some
by jim-jim-jim 6y ago
In my ideal world property is decommodified and the rentier class is eliminated, yes. Attempting to reach that arrangement via polite means does introduce some complications, since landlords have the capital for down payments while others don't.
By making landlording prohibitively expensive, you compel them to sell. They can't sell to other landlords, since the new buyer would incur the same penalty, so the most likely customers would be first time owners or the state itself. The government, free of the landlord's profit motive, could in turn offer these properties to the public at lower prices through long term mortgages with little to no down payment. The weekly repayments would be less than rent, and the occupants would eventually own the property instead of lining somebody else's pocket. I don't know what the precise term for this model is, but I don't think it's unprecedented.
Like I said, this is the polite route. It introduces complexity to avoid stepping on too many toes, and therein lie its flaws. I can certainly think of more direct methods.
- JamesBarney 6y agoI assume the impolite route is we use violence to end property rights and live in a utopian commune?
- pydry 6y agoIntroduction of a land value tax or other forms of land wealth redistribution need not necessarily lead to violence but it probably would. Redistribution of the spoils of unearned income is probably one of the leading causes of violence (e.g. civil war, bay of pigs) and the threat of violence is what helps keep those systems in place.
- imtringued 6y agoYou know, the easiest way for things to go bad is by giving gifts to people who don't appreciate their new gifts because they are under the mistaken belief that they are the rightful owner.
- epistasis 6y agoBased on your posts, I never would have guessed that you wanted to eliminate the rentier class, since everything you propose does little to eliminate their activity, and seems dedicated to maintaining their main source of profits: increased asset values. In supply-constrained markets, asset appreciation far outpaces the revenue from rents. So if you charge taxes on vacant apartments, the asset owner may try harder to rent out the unit, but that just increases their profits even more. When profits from asset appreciation eclipse rent revenues, establishing rent caps does little to eliminate rentier profits. Already, loans are predicated on rents not increasing above inflation, so rent caps do nothing to curb asset appreciation, especially as long as rental units can also be owned (for example single unit detached homes). Limiting the number of properties that somebody can own does little to force "small landlordism," unless you also ban the ownership of property by LLCs or other organizations, which would also ban many better forms of ownership like co-ops. The core problem is not the profits, even though that is problematic. Rentier profits just a symptom of the real problem: asset price appreciation due to exclusionary practices. That's what must be attacked head on, with socialization of land use so that when lots of people want to live in an area, they are allowed to, and anti democratic landowners are not allowed to exclude new people. Ironically, the pure landlords are less often against such proposals, it's the rentier homeowners that are often the ones who subvert society and in turn force profits to landlords. Though quite often, these exclusionary homeowners have become "small" landlords too, and doubly invested in keeping our new people to maximize their unearned profits.