You know what’s the fastest way to make landlords disappear? Ask about some broken shit around the house that they are required by law to fix. Radio silence for months guaranteed. Until the next rent increase of course.
When I married my wife and she moved in we tried renting out her house with a property management company. She got one tenant and had that tenant for over 2 years with no complaints and we never raised the rent, just enough to cover taxes going up too.
But when we wanted to move to a larger house we gave her an 8 month notice we couldn’t renew since the market is so bad and we needed to sell. And my wife wasn’t profiting at all, she was still in the red from the repairs and setting up the house to rent out. We offered her like $10k off the price.
Anyway long story short, the tenant gave us hell for those 8 months, and when she moved out we found she never complained about anything because she ignored all the problems which made things worse and the house needed thousands of more dollars to prepare and sell.
She’ll never try being a landlord again, she hated it and the tenant shit talked her “landlord” on Facebook all the time like she was some evil monster.
I don’t know how anyone else does the landlord thing, this must be all the ones run by evil corporations.
This was a house my wife bought for like $150-180k originally.
We have a previous neighbor who got fuckin railed by a tenant. It was the first and last time they tried to rent a property. They were the old couple everyone loved in our neighborhood. And they only moved so they could help raise their grandkids. Some of the nicest people I’ve ever known became landlords.
The tenant was a state sponsored recovering drug addict. She had recently gotten her kids back. Then covid hit and our state put a moratorium on evictions. She immediately stopped paying rent, started breading dogs, trashed the house, ruined the septic, and barely took care of her kids. The dogs kept escaping and attacking other dogs, some sort of pit bread that she was trying to sell. The whole house was filled with feces. She bought 3 campers and parked them into our shared road. The county couldn’t do anything to stop this literal garbage human from fucking over these gold standard landlords.
After she was evicted the whole house had to be renovated and the septic system had to be replaced. Over $100k in damage by 1 tenant. They will never rent again. Which is sad because they were very forgiving landlords. Rent was like 50% of what they could charge and the house was very nice.
The whole situation convinced me that its not really that good landlords can’t exist. The problem is the few shit tenants scare the good ones away. The only ones that stay in the game are the bad ones because can tolerate the dogshit tenants. This was my worst example, but I know two other families that tried being landlords and got burned as well.
Cry us a river
No sympathy for landlords.
No sympathy lmao, you dont get to cry
Very similar situation.
If i had Jeff Bozos money, I’d buy a bunch of houses and offer them to the homeless to get the back into society. Fucking bozo Bozos is. And that’s why I’ll never have Jeff Bozos money.
“understood, create a factory town and offer housing in exchange for employment.” ~ Bezos
Landlord said to me “property tax has gone up. This is my only form of income. Will need to increase rent”
Told him “yeah, everything has gone up and my paycheck is still the same”.
Like, these types of relationships are so parasitic. This is the “nice” mom and pop style landlord too that every liberal seems to want to give a pass too.
Sure, are they less bad than the big corporate faceless landlords? Yes. But the entire relationship is the problem.
They get to justify forcing me out of my home because the value of the house that they own WENT UP.
That’s why their property tax is more. They literally own something that is more valuable and making it further impossible for me to ever buy a place of my own.
If that’s their whole retirement investment (as they said it’s their only income, no idea about us retirement details) if they don’t increase your rent, their net income will GO DOWN. Prices of everything also went up for them, if you think it’s hard with constant income, imagine with declining income.
The value of their house going up is useless to pay for bread.
You should get a bigger paycheck, average wage growth is around 5% in the US, higher than inflation even.
Sounds like they should get an actual job, rather than expecting someone else to pay for their retirement; someone who probably won’t get to retire themselves
If it’s their only income source I assume they are retired. If they aren’t, you are absolutely right.
Why do we have to sacrifice our future ability to retire and own a house because they bought all the houses and retired first?
If that’s their whole retirement investment maybe they should get a job
They probably had a job for many decades, it’s how they bought and paid the house.
And now they are taking away the next generations ability to buy and pay for a house by making them fund their retirement.
Please use gender neutral inclusive language, instead of landlord, use the gender neutral term, landleech.
I was ready to hate on this post… but you right.
Seconding this motion
Hey, those buildings and apartments aren’t gonna rent themselves! /s
And then they raise rent. For what? They haven’t upgraded anything. They haven’t added any of that value to the property. Every year the house gets older. Cars lose value every year even if you maintain it perfectly.
The land is what’s gaining value, not the structure on it
Good tenants make the neighborhood more desirable. So the rent being raised is a way to punish good Tennant, and steal their hard earn benefit from their existential labour.
And then they try to fuck you over when you leave the place by pinning all the costs of normal dilapidation on you. Fortunately where I live the law forbids it but it doesn’t stop them from trying every time.
If there were only a set number of cars available and creating more was prohibitively expensive, cars would appreciate in value as well.
And to be clear, I’m not talking about the house; building more of those is expensive, but doable. It’s building more land that’s the tricky part
When I did a vacation in Sri Lanka our guide told us some cars appreciated in price because the government increased (I believe it was that) import taxes.
Edit: Appreciation due to car scarcity
Same happened everywhere during covid.
It’s mind-bending that a car now cost what a new house cost, when I was a kid.
(This was way after covid).
If I remember it correctly, the government is heavily restricting import of foreign brands.
Our guide drove an imported japanese EV.
How do people still argue that landlords are useful and necessary?
The people saying that are usually hoping to become landlords themselves.
By being landlords or personally knowing landlords.
I swear my uncle is a good landlord. Keeps prices low, I swear he doesn’t rip off his renters. He would never do that.
If there were as many good landlords as I have heard this story we wouldn’t have any problems Kyle, sit the fuck back down.
Assuming this comment isn’t ironic: there is no such thing as a good landlord. Landlords are parasitic middlemen who live by leeching off the value created by workers. They contribute no value whatsoever.
This is admitted even in mainstream economics, its termed rent-seeking.
there is no such thing as a good landlord.
Okay, I’ll bite. I just bought a 4-bed/3-bath (actually 4 bathrooms, but bathroom math made it “3-bath”) because we are a family of four in an expensive tourist spot and wanted a guest bedroom for family and visitors. It just so happened one bed and a 3/4 bathroom is in an attached 1-bedroom apartment with its own kitchen and living room.
So when I retire, and my oldest is out of the house to college, we are thinking we could rent that particular part (at a very reasonable rate to people we know). It is part of the house, so I can’t sell it separately. So the choice is be a landlord, or don’t offer housing (I suppose I could make it an AirBnB and make even more money, but this area is already fucked for housing for that reason).
So if there is no such thing as a good landlord, what would you recommend in a situation like this? Let someone live there for free? Then they’d be costing me money. Don’t rent it out? AirBnB?
So when I retire, and my oldest is out of the house to college, we are thinking we could rent that particular part (at a very reasonable rate to people we know). It is part of the house, so I can’t sell it separately.
If you don’t need that space, then you might as well sell it and let another family make use of it instead.
Yours is not a unique situation; a lot of older people downsize when their kids move out, and they have a lot of extra rooms and space they no longer need. Its the right decision anyway, as you’re now free to be more mobile, and get rid of all the years of accumulated junk.
So you’re saying that person should sell their house because one of the rooms is unoccupied? What if their oldest loses their job and can’t find a new one, but has to move back, and then can’t because they downsized to a smaller house?
I’m not so sure that is a great solution.
What if their oldest loses their job and can’t find a new one, but has to move back, and then can’t because they downsized to a smaller house?
What if their oldest loses their job and now for no fault of their own the renter is suddenly forced to find a new place to live to accommodate the landlords son? But they’ve been spending their money on rent so they don’t have enough savings to find a decent place?
Sure you can argue they dont need that space, but a lot of kids return after college. If I had kids I’d only downsize once they are well established. It’s about ensuring the security of your family and ensuring they have a place to come back to.
Is it better to let that sit space vacant for 4+ years though?
There are two options? Rent it for profit or leave it empty?
a lot of older people downsize when their kids move out,
And we plan to, when both kids move out. But just one kid, with one five years behind the other? But anyway, isn’t moving the guest space to the main house section and renting out the apartment essentially “downsizing” to a three-bedroom anyway? Either way, the house remains a two-unit house. If somebody wants a temporary living situation by themselves or with one partner, what is wrong with them renting an apartment from me?
Look, I get it, the system is set up to screw people over to get big corpos big money. If somebody is living in apartment for a decade, that is a fucked up situation. But where I live there are military single young’uns wanting to get out of barracks for a year or two before their tour is done and they transfer, or regularly traveling nurses or others who come seasonally for work who aren’t in a position to buy a house and wouldn’t want to.
This whole “no good landlords” reeks of the same mentality as “no good lawyers.” Yes, there are a lot of greedy, unscrupulous (or overly adversarial) lawyers, but there are situations where having a lawyer is really important and there are plenty of good ones for those situations. The problem is a system that allows and encourages the profession to be abused.
This whole “no good landlords” reeks of the same mentality as “no good lawyers.”
Not the same at all, as lawyers do work to get paid.
Landlords rent-seek by charging access to important and scarce property that they themselves don’t use. They extract value through ownership alone, and add no labor value of their own to the process, that the tenants as owners couldn’t do for themselves.
If somebody wants a temporary living situation by themselves or with one partner, what is wrong with them renting an apartment from me?
What gives you the right to these people’s paychecks? If you’re not using it, then sell it, and don’t rent-seek.
There is nothing defensible about being a landlord. Its not exactly the same as owning slaves or owning capital, but all three are based on absentee ownership and extracting value from working people.
Downsize when you don’t need the space anymore? Would be my guess.
First, that doesn’t solve the problem because then somebody else has two units in one building.
Second, downsize… from a four bed to a three bed? Not sure what sense that makes. Our needs won’t have changed dramatically.
Another piece that I didn’t mention is that I’m in the military, in a place with 3-year tours (so fairly temporary), and the young single people who arrive usually don’t wany anything too permanent, and are not in a position to buy. But I do know what their allowance for housing it, so I would be able to charge less than their allowance for housing, meaning they would get money out of the deal (and stuff is expensive here, so I’m not sure how they live anyway), and I get a respectful, reliable tenant (and we could offer home-cooked meals to whoever stays).
I know it’s a unique circumstance, and an exception hardly disproves the rule, but I don’t think “there’s no such thing as a good landlord” is a true blanket statement.
A lot of kids move back after college. I definitely wouldn’t downsize until my family was secure and for sure no longer needed the space.
Now the question is it better to allow that space sit vacant or rent out the space.
I think there is a defensible position for renting out a temporarily unused space in your primary home versus buying vacant properties solely to rent.
Moving is kinda stressful though, but if you can manage that downsizing would probably be the right call.
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Suppose a person owns an apartment building. What’s the process they should follow to behave as a good person should?
This has nothing to do with being a “good” person.
That said.
They could create a housing cooperative where all the tenants are owner-members and share the property collectively. If they live in the building too they can also be an equal owner-member. If they live somewhere else, they have to give up ownership.
No ones acquires an entire apartment building in the first place with the purpose of living in it. They do it to become rent-seeking parasites.
But to your hypothetical, they could create a co-op as @[email protected] mentioned.
Not an apartment complex, but a building makes sense.
I’m not saying it’s just, but there are some loans that allow you to buy a quadplex but you have to live there. You are free to rent out the remaining units.
Sell it to the tenants.
Well obviously the most moral thing would be to live in it themselves or give it away to someone who actually wants to live in it. I accept that practically nobody is gonna be virtuous enough to just give away a free apartment to a homeless person, but selling it for a (at least somewhat) reasonable price is probably what I’d realistically do (assuming no close friend or family member wanted it).
Renting it out is still inherently exploiting the person living there.
Also consider that no “good person” simply owns a residential property that they don’t live in.
I know I’m not who you’re replying to and other people might disagree with parts of this, but can anyone seriously not agree that all landlords are scum?
Renting it out is still inherently exploiting the person living there.
There are legit reasons to rent and not own everything. Just like tools, might be better to rent a table saw than buy one that now you have to store and maintain.
That’s not a reason for anyone to make money from rents.
Ok but this isn’t really the same thing. A home isn’t a tool you rent just to use when you need it. Everyone needs a shelter to live in.
You give two reasons it’s preferable to rent rather than own your home:
- You have to store it.
That’s just ridiculous.
- You have to maintain it.
You do realise that you’re still paying to maintain it, right? The landlord is just also taking extra. Even if the landlord were charging you only what was strictly necessary for maintenance (which they aren’t), they’d still have unnecessary leverage over you just for existing in a space.
Don’t try to make excuses for landlords. We all know they’re vermin. They’re not doing you any favours by forcing you to keep paying high prices to live.
(Edit: formatting)
I don’t think I could rip off anyone if I decided to rent my place when I move. Hoping to keep it for my kid, but I’d basically charge the bare minimum, would even show the tenant what I pay as the owner so they’d understand. I wouldn’t use it as a profit source, but because land is scarce and I just happen to have spent years owning this.
But even then it may not be worth, sell it to a new owner and move on. I’m not greedy by any means, just want to be comfortable.
It would still be someone else paying you to keep your properties value up while receiving nothing of value for their money. You wouldn’t be on the same level as an intentionally evil landlord. Just be aware that you would still be siphoning money from a worker into your pocket.
It would still be someone else paying you to keep your properties value up while receiving nothing of value for their money.
Is not living on the street not really something of value? I feel that is something of value, isn’t it?
I dunno, I don’t have any interest in becoming a landlord but I commonly see people considering them as the most evil people in the world no matter what and it does confuse me a little bit. People always say landlords are always evil, but there are tenants who are weeks or months late on their rent, they destroy the place, etc, it doesn’t seem like such a dream job to me.
Is not living on the street not really something of value? I feel that is something of value, isn’t it?
Just compare it to buying property where you continously pay off your credit. You get something in return, ownership of a property. Just because you are too poor to afford that, thus being forced ot pay rent, you receive significantly less for the money you spend on housing. Also, and this might be a weird stance for americans, I don’t think anyone should be facing the choice of being able to pay rent and ending homeless on the street.
I dunno, I don’t have any interest in becoming a landlord but I commonly see people considering them as the most evil people in the world no matter what and it does confuse me a little bit.
They commonly siphon off income from workers to keep their properties value up. This is just pararsitic behaviour.
People always say landlords are always evil, but there are tenants who are weeks or months late on their rent, they destroy the place, etc, it doesn’t seem like such a dream job to me.
So bad tenants are an excuse to be an evil parasite towards every tenant there is? Also, being a landlord isn’t just a job. It is making more money from existing property by exploiting the need of housing of those that are not able to afford a place themselves.
Just compare it to buying property where you continously pay off your credit. You get something in return, ownership of a property. Just because you are too poor to afford that, thus being forced ot pay rent, you receive significantly less for the money you spend on housing. Also, and this might be a weird stance for americans, I don’t think anyone should be facing the choice of being able to pay rent and ending homeless on the street.
So you’re saying that poor people should just… not live anywhere and instead should live on the street? I’m not sure I get your point, because if that is your point, it’s not a very good one.
They commonly siphon off income from workers to keep their properties value up. This is just pararsitic behaviour.
Sure they’re all evil parasites, whatever you say, I don’t think a large corporation renting out multiple buildings jumping at the chance to raise rent and/or evict someone who is even slightly late on rent is the same as an older man renting out a spare room in his house ever since his oldest moved out?
So bad tenants are an excuse to be an evil parasite towards every tenant there is? Also, being a landlord isn’t just a job. It is making more money from existing property by exploiting the need of housing of those that are not able to afford a place themselves.
So bad tenants being excused from any culpability means that all landlords are automatically evil no matter what?
It is making more money from existing property by exploiting the need of housing of those that are not able to afford a place themselves.
It is providing a place to stay for people who can’t otherwise afford one…? Or should those people just live on the street?
I posted elsewhere in this thread, some people want to rent. There is a market for legit renters without ripping them off. If it costs $2800 for my mortgage/hoa/utilities and I only charge $2800, I don’t see an issue. Any issues are coming out of my pocket at that price.
I don’t even know if I want to rent to someone, that’s a whole other set of headaches. I’d probably offer it to my kid, then move on. It’s not an income to me, but property is hard to come by, I would have to think about it. I’ve already paid into it, banks got their share, I went through a lot of trouble to get it, so it’s not like giving away tickets to a concert I couldn’t make.
Also I wouldn’t be “siphoning” anything, I’m renting what I own, just like toro car rentals. No one is making them do it. But my location is very great, near public transit, near two very recently built town centers, trails, lakes, etc. it’s not like they’re paying for a tent. Can move here for a year or so and find out it’s exactly what they want or what they hate.
I don’t even know if I want to rent to someone, that’s a whole other set of headaches.
I live with my elderly parents, taking care of them until they move into a nursing home or worse (although I’m not sure death is actually worse than a nursing home). In the meantime, I bought myself a small house nearby that I’m renovating and I plan to move there after I close out my parents’ house. I’m genuinely terrified of renting it out after having put so much time and effort into it. A lot of people rent in this neighborhood and I’ve seen firsthand what some tenants do to places.
But if I do rent it out, I’m a shitty scumlord? I’m a better person if I don’t rent it?
But if I do rent it out, I’m a shitty scumlord? I’m a better person if I don’t rent it?
this is my issue too. clearly the collective “landlord” that people are talking about are people that hoard homes and rent them out as an income. thats a bit much. but someone who just rents a single property, maybe in the city nearby where they used to live before they moved to a quieter area, i don’t see as an issue. a condo in a city could be a great place for a person to rent while they decide if that city is for them, or until their career takes them elsewhere. i don’t see renting as a problem
the problem in my opinion is these properties being bought up by corporations who follow no real set of laws and gouge renters in shitty apartments, coorborate with other apt buildings and price fix the area. that is a problem to me. renting from an older person or family who very possibly lived in the home you’re going to rent, so fucking what. do it or don’t, but don’t lump them in with corporation owned apt complexes and actual slumlords.
I had a friend who was a landlady, but as an anarchist she more or less rented her building at cost so as to not need to sell it while she was taking care of her parents
Cool story bro
My parents own multiple rental properties and completely straight face told me it’s a charity cause they rent to people who can’t afford homes.
Meanwhile I’m engaging with my mutual aid group every week handing out about 400 meals, and survival gear for people who can’t afford anything.
Glad their fucking charity has turned enough profit to pay off the rentals, their main home, and their vacation spot though. /s
They kinda are necessary, given how they’re the byproduct of capitalism’s private property model and its commodification.
You could technically remove them by having the state manage all the housing, but that’s overly idealistic given how that’d go against the ruling class interests which would cause heavy lobbying by big landowners. It would also make the state a monopoly landowner which would have its own implications.
In other words, they’re necessary not because they’re useful, but because of how dogshit the system is.
I just found an article (from 1955) by my grandma where she argued that she prefers renting over building a house because she has more freedom that way. She can move more easily because she doesn’t have to find a buyer for her house, she doesn’t have to worry about something breaking because that’s on the landlord to fix and she doesn’t have to go into debt to live somewhere.
As far as I know she never owned a home, always rented. But all her kids bought houses.
Sure, but it sounds like she’s never been evicted for no reason.
That does sound like a regulation problem in the capitalist hellacape that is the USA more than anything. I live in The Netherlands and evicting someone here is very difficult. A landlord needs to make his case in front of a judge and everything. There’s one reason with which they can evict a tenant with a bit more ease and that’s to use the property themselves, but they need to prove why they need it all of a sudden. And even then they need to pay the tenant roundabouts €7000 to help with the move.
And her rent probably didn’t take 100 hours of labor a month.
I had a coworker liked that. He enjoyed renting because it meant having fewer responsibilities.
I disagreed, and countered that renting means being more dependent on somebody else. Some landlords are excellent at responding to repair calls, but there are so many more that will leave you hanging for an indetermined amount of time, while leaks continue or appliances break. Personally, I’d rather not have the quality of life in my own home be dependent on someone who doesn’t really care about me.
Sadly, I don’t have much of a choice. I would prefer being able to pick my own repair people or just fix simple things myself. Alas, like so many others, I work full time but remain stuck in the rent trap. So much for freedom.
One of my coworkers said the same thing. After the third time they were forced to move they caved and bought a condo.
One of my big concerns is that access to psychological benefits of keeping a pet gets to be gatekept by the whims of someone else.
I’m also that coworker. Bought a 1995 build house in 2013, and sold it last year. Holy cost of maintenance. Roof, foundation, HVAC, plumbing, gutters, siding. We upgraded the windows too, so that was a choice, but nothing else was. Didn’t have money for professional interior upgrades because we were maintaining the structure itself instead.
If I ever buy a house ever again, it will be a condo so I’m only responsible for the INSIDE. As of right now, after all that, I’m happy renting. I’m so disinterested with painting and whatnot, that it doesn’t bug me to have white walls.
I do agree that the pet situation sucks though. We have 2 “aggressive breeds” that were strays we picked up off the street years ago (2016 and 2020), a Pit mix and a Dobie mix. Finding someone to rent to us with those was a chore. And for the few years we rented out our home (military. Lived in it while we were stationed there, rented it out for a few years, moved back in when we returned to the same duty station), we didn’t have a breed restriction.
We’re about to move across the country again, and I’m STOKED to be moving into an apartment. Rn we’re renting a SFH and it has been so nice knowing that money we had saved up isnt about to disappear because the water heater broke or whatever.
But but who will extract the remaining surplus value that the employers missed?
People? Like IRL? I’ve only ever seen it happen online.
Rent is due in 5 days.
Once again, may I introduce you to GEORGISM.
Please, I know lemmy is a bit left leaning, and georgism are mostly libertarians/liberal, but the ideology is so centrist and common sense I’m sure even far left communist advocates can get behind it.
Georgism is great but we also have problem with corporations so georgism isn’t enough. We need socialism or at least distributism
The reason Georgism fell out of favor on the left is because Marxism already develops beyond where Georgism falls flat. It’s certainly broadly appealing, in that liberals can get behind it rather quickly, but it falls short of Marxist economics in completeness, to the point that it doesn’t really bother resolving the fundamental problems with capitalist exploitation, centralization, crisis, or production and overproduction, it just focuses on rent.
It’s also very difficult to get through, it’s a reformist approach that depends on asking those that have full control of the economy to make it less exploitative. That doesn’t happen without revolution, at which point you can go far beyond and address core, systemic issues.
Leftists are aware of Goergism. They don’t generally take it seriously because it’s just ‘one weird trick’ reformism that’s trying to save capitalism from itself. It doesn’t change what capitalism is or the historical process it drives, it’ll get clawed back immediately just like every other social democratic reform, and it would cause a full on capital revolt if you somehow magic lamp’ed it into practice such that you might as well just do the real revolution and actually overthrow capitalism for the same amount of effort.
but the ideology is so centrist and common sense
I really just commented as an excuse to lol at this line.
Can you give a TLDR for this if possible
Georgism is an ideology broadly based on taxing the full value of land, in order to prevent rentseeking.
So rather than taxing people for the property they built/bought, you tax the land which no one made.
The value of the land is based on the progress society made in that area, so when you tax the full unimproved value of the land, you prevent landlords from essentially leeching on the results of society progress that they did not directly contirubute to.
You can still buy land, but when you do you must pay full rent to the government, so technically, if the government did own all the land and lease it out for rent, it would be goergist in practice(but not in spirit, since goergism wants to protect property rights)
It boils down to property tax as a means of preventing land accumulation and tax revenue generation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism
I don’t see how that would have worked even when it was invented.
Right now you can see how the rich own all the land and have no need to use or sell it. This way they create a shortage and can charge a higher price for the land they use or sell. IMO the only way to break this up to stop charging property tax at all - because all land ownership goes back to the state. If someone wants to use land they rent it from the state. If they do not use or misuse rented land the land goes to a different renter (or to the state).
Doesn’t Singapore or some other country have a system like this, where you don’t own the land, just get long term leases
Hey there. Never heard of it, actually. Thanks, I’ll find a time to read about it.
What I find interesting in this particular libertarian initiative so far, is that it is addressing an existing systematic issue. Almost all other libertarians I come around seem to be speaking about their and everyone else’s morality and righteousness, naively thinking that once we all become moral and righteous, society would become as well.
To be fair, you haven’t heard of it because it isn’t particularly relevant. Marxism already develops beyond where Georgism stops, so anyone who is disgruntled with capitalism already has a much more influential, developed, and accurate framework to go with.
To be fair, you haven’t heard of it because it isn’t particularly relevant.
I think that is because georgism is a centrist ideology. Centrist ideology isn’t attractive, and therefore georgism isn’t popular.
But your opinion isn’t wrong either. Georgism will only fix landlord problem but it will not fix corporation problem
Exactly. Georgism could be studied as an interesting historical curiosity, but it never took off, and was a historical failure, whereas Marxism especially in the USSR and China abolished land-owning rent-seeking, and the massive economic drain that caused.
Absolutely, Marxism has teeth to it because it works in real life.
I know I’m going to get downvoted for this, but since the USSR was a historical failure and Marxists claim China isn’t actually Communist but Capitalist, can’t we say the same for Marxism? An interesting historical curiosity, but it was never actually implemented and thus can’t be said to have ever taken off.
Both Georgists and Marxists get to complain about how things would be so much better if someone would actually just do it the right way for once. I say this as a left leaning Georgist Libertarian, to my heart in the right place Marxist cousins.
since the USSR was a historical failure and Marxists claim China isn’t actually Communist but Capitalist
Both of those claims are false.
This short video on obstacles to the China path in Latin America gets into exactly what we’re talking about, the abolition of the rent-seeking parasitic sector of the economy that the Chinese revolution abolished.
The USSR was a historic success. The dissolution of the USSR is one large failure, but doesn’t negate the century of success after success in proving socialism works, siding with national liberation movements, and advancing the needs of the working class. The USSR worked, economically, its dissolution was more of a political failure than one pointing to Marxism not being able to work.
The PRC is socialist, those who say it’s capitalist typically conflate markets for capitalism, when the process of sublimating private property is a gradual one once the large firms and key industries are siezed. Both the USSR and PRC are examples of socialism working.
Marxism was implemented, and still is. Rather, Marxism-Leninism is a tool for analysis and revolution, to bring about socialism, and is has many historical successes, and continues to succeed today. Marxism-Leninism is the guiding ideology of the largest economy in the world by purchasing power parity.
So no, you can’t really say the same of Marxism as you can of Georgism. Marxism works, still works, and will continue to work. Georgism was a curiosity for a while and fades while Marxism-Leninism became the defining ideology of the 20th century, and will continue to prove even more relevant thanks to the rise of the PRC over the US.
The vast and rapid modernization and industrialization of Russia at the start was a success, but my opinion is that Marxist-Leninism stopped in the USSR when Stalin seized the country and turned it into a crony dictatorship. I don’t believe that lasted long enough to be truly called a success, as it immediately fell to the authoritarianism it overthrew from the monarchy.
If you don’t think that Stalinism was the death of Marxist-Leninism in the USSR then the bread lines, famines, forced labor and relocation, imperial expansionism, etc. as broadly reported by those that lived there and lived through it are a product of socialism. I also believe that would count as failures of socialism and not proof of success.
I agree with you that the PRC is still nominally socialist, but believe they also went Stalinist instead of Marxist-Leninist. I would call them Stalinist Communist rather than socialist. I also do not think the juice was worth the squeeze with the number of dead in the revolution and aftermath, but there is no telling what an alternative would have looked like so that is just, like, my opinion man. I personally don’t consider China as a socialist success story, but instead another warning example for how easily Communism can be corrupted/captured from within.
I totally give you that Marxist-Leninism was the defining ideology of the 20th century, but I’d call it the fuse that lead to “Communism” the failed authoritarian ideology. Like the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand is to WWI. That is a hell of a lot more than Georgism ever got, to be sure, but would still say there has never been a successful Marxist country because they never remain Marxist for long.
Stalin did not “sieze the country and turn it into a crony dictatorship.” You can read works like Soviet Democracy, This Soviet World, and Is The Red Flag Flying? The Political Economy of the Soviet Union. The Soviets had a robust system of democracy. It didn’t “fall into authoritarianism,” it entered into a state of siege in all sides from capitalist invaders and as such had to defend itself. You should really read about the soviet government structure and democracy.
As for your lightning round:
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Bread Lines - it’s a good thing to feed people in times of crisis. The US did it too, and that was a good thing.
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Famine - famine was common in Russia before collectivization, which ended famine in the USSR.
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Forced labor and relocation - this part is an issue, but it isn’t intrinsic to Marxism or socialism, and was phased out over time.
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Imperial expansionism - the USSR was not imperialist. It did expand, but expanding itself is not a bad thing, especially when the majority of people who lived in the Soviet Union said they were better off then.
“Stalinism” isn’t an ideology. Stalin had his own policies during his time as the leader of the Soviet Union, especially Socialism in One Country as opposed to Trotsky’s Permanent Revolution, but Stalin was a Marxist-Leninist. Marxism-Leninism was synthesized by him. There was no betrayal of Marxism-Leninism until the Khruschev era, where reforms began to work against the centralized socialist system, leading to the utter disasters of the later Gorbachev and Yeltsin eras and the dissolution.
The PRC is Marxist-Leninist. There’s no such thing as “Stalinism,” to begin with, but you can’t use Stalinist to describe the PRC anyways because there’s no Stalin, so you can’t even use it to describe Stalin’s specific economic policies. Either way, over 90% of Chinese citizens approve of their government. The revolution saved countless lives and doubled life expectancies, same as in Russia.
I really don’t know what you think Marxism-Leninism is. If you want, I have an introductory reading list you can check out. It also isn’t just the guiding ideology of the USSR and PRC, but other countries like Vietnam, Cuba, and more, with similar success stories.
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That’s like saying that some culture doesn’t require my attention because the European one is superior
No, it isn’t. What are you talking about?
You’ve dismissed the other person’s political views on the premise of Marxism including the Georgism. There are reasons why this person is not aligned with other Marxists’ takes and I would like to know them. You just view yourself superior to them
Georgism is both reformist, so it requires asking the ruling class to willingly kneecap their profits, and only covers rent, really, meaning it ignores exploitation, production, imperialism, overproduction, and crisis. Marxism answers those, and is revolutionary, it’s more relevant because it works and is more complete.
I’m missing your point. Why then would a person have Georistic rather than Marxist political views?
That’s like saying “I’m racist”
You can tell it’s hard earned from all the neglect
This is such a shit show of a post.
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Removed by mod
Landlord = banned.
What did he say? Not a landlord myself, but I’m always curious to hear both sides. I think there can be good landlords, had one myself… Didn’t raise rent on us, took care of the place when things went wrong, even offered to sell the place to us but we weren’t ready financially at the time…
Some people choose to rent instead of buying for the sake of not having to keep up with house maintenance, and in that case, the landlord I speak of, I’d argue was a good landlord. Win win for both parties. Not common, I know, but speaking in absolutes is rarely productive.
The landlord was still exploiting you and taking a ton of the wages you keep, which are already being stolen from through capitalist exploitation. If you prefer renting, then it would be a much better system to have publicly owned housing that isn’t run to make a profit, or even with the expectation that cheap or free housing is a social cost.
Hell yeah
So you’re visa/MC now?
Don’t like it? BANNED!
