Comment on When leftists say "landlord are parasites" or similar dislike of landlords, do they also mean the people that own like a couple of houses as an investment, or only the big landlords?

• Adderbox76@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Capitalism is inherently parasitic

  I fundamentally disagree with that.

  Venture Capitalism is parasitic. But Capitalism itself is not at all. At it’s heart, if we continue with the landlord analogy, let’s say that you are renting a house from the OP’s Aunt. She’s paying the building insurance. She’s paying the maintenance, (or in some good old fashioned cases doing it themselves). She’s dealing with the paperwork involved in owning a home. Hell, in some cases you don’t even have to mow your own lawn. So of course she’s charging you rent. It’s not a charity.

  But if she’s a private owner, than your rent stays with her. She uses what she needs to maintain the building and…yes…makes a profit that then gets spent in the local economy.

  The only time there’s an issue is when your rent is being sent to a corporation that may not even be in the same country as you, and that money leaves your local economy for good.

  To use an anecdotal example, I’ve worked in my time for two different furniture stores in my town. One was a chain, and one was/is a family run operation from the beginning. And yes…that family is wildly successful; I’m not guessing millionaires, but close to it. And I don’t begrudge them at all for that. Because it’s family owned, they aren’t forced to only care about a stock price or about profit. My boss would randomly come up to me, sometimes multiple times a year, clap me on the back and say “You’re doing a good job, I’m going to add a buck an hour to your wage.”

  Because they can. Because for all intents and purposes, you’ve got a better chance to be treated like a human being when a corporation isn’t in the way.

  The chain furniture store would only give out raises when forced to by government mandated cost of living increases, because anything more would cause the stock price to go down.

  The heart of capitalism is my first example. The reality of capitalism is my second unfortunately. But that’s not the fault of capitalism itself, it’s the lack of government oversight protecting us from predatory corporations.

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  • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    The heart of capitalism is my first example. The reality of capitalism is my second unfortunately. But that’s not the fault of capitalism itself, it’s the lack of government oversight protecting us from predatory corporations.

    I remember when I used to be naive enough to believe this.

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    • camr_on@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      Lol try to be a little more condescending, will you?

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      • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        Yeah sorry, I guess I’m just tired of this shit.

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      • Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        Shush kiddo, the adults who can read are talking.

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  • aeshna_cyanea@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    Yeah whole mom and pop businesses getting eaten by larger, more specialized and efficient corpos is not a bug, it’s an inherent feature of capitalism. A worker at a specialized firm can manage dozens of apartments for the same salary as your aunt managing just one or two- she stands no chance in the long run.

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  • masterspace@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    At it’s heart, if we continue with the landlord analogy, let’s say that you are renting a house from the OP’s Aunt. She’s paying the building insurance. She’s paying the maintenance, (or in some good old fashioned cases doing it themselves). She’s dealing with the paperwork involved in owning a home. Hell, in some cases you don’t even have to mow your own lawn. So of course she’s charging you rent. It’s not a charity.

    Oh wow, she has to do 40 hours of work a year, she totally deserves a full time salary for that!

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