I think we have different definitions of value and I will not pretend to be an economic theorist, this is out of my depth. My argument comes from a very practical perspective of supply and demand. There is obviously demand for renting property otherwise it wouldn’t exist.
Supply and Demand are only part of the factor, they orbit around Value. What determines the price of a commodity when Supply and Demand cover each other? The answer is Value.
I do think that capitalism at large creates an economic barrier and if one is below the barrier it is difficult to build capital and if you’re above the barrier it is easy. Picking on just land-lording is only picking at one instance of some larger systemic issues that capitalism brings with it. This will not change unless the government adds regulations that add “fairness” to pure capitalism.
I pick on all of Capitalism, I’m a Communist. Landlording just happens to be the topic at hand. At that matter, regulations and “fairness” will never fix Capitalism, just make its worst aspects more bearable until it collapses under itself.
Supply and Demand are only part of the factor, they orbit around Value. What determines the price of a commodity when Supply and Demand cover each other? The answer is Value.
Yes and renting of houses pretty uniformly exists under all market conditions I.e. even when supply and demand “cover each other”. So by your definition there must still be some value since it has a place in the market.
The value offered is a service, just like a hotel room. What is an alternative to renting that could enable someone to have a place to live without having the capital to buy property?
The Demand never covers the Supply in the housing market because houses are in limited supply. Renters are held hostage.
The alternative is government-owned and provided housing.
The Demand never covers the Supply in the housing market because houses are in limited supply. Renters are held hostage.
This isn’t true, there are certainly cases where supply outweighs demand and landlords are unable to rent their house. It doesn’t mean that renters could suddenly afford to buy it though.
The alternative is government-owned and provided housing.
I’ve yet to see where a government subsidized housing project ever turns into a desirable place to live. Unless you go full communism across the board where the government literally controls all housing, but this is extreme and pre-supposes that you are in alignment with the ideals and goals of your government. Historically this doesn’t seem to end up serving the common person better than a free market would.
All the top countries ranked by standard of living have some form of capitalist economy with some gov regulation safeguards in place.
I pick on all of Capitalism, I’m a Communist. Landlording just happens to be the topic at hand. At that matter, regulations and “fairness” will never fix Capitalism, just make its worst aspects more bearable until it collapses under itself.
Isn’t this an argument that could be applied against communism though? Communism is government regulation to enforce fairness, if it can’t fix capitalism, why would it work in a communist economy?
That’s not what Communism is. Communism is the process of working through contradictions (ie the proletariat vs the bourgeoisie) through Historical Development. Socialism is established via Proletarian control of Capital, rather than Bourgeois, not just regulation or “fairness.”
Your comment reminded me of a quote about the Bolsheviks and the idea of communist “equality”
long quote
The kind of socialism under which everybody would get the same pay, an equal quantity of meat and an equal quantity of bread, would wear the same clothes and receive the same goods in the same quantities — such a socialism is unknown to Marxism.
All that Marxism says is that until classes have been finally abolished and until labor has been transformed from a means of subsistence into the prime want of man, into voluntary labor for society, people will be paid for their labor according to the work performed. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his work.” Such is the Marxist formula of socialism, i.e., the formula of the first stage of communism, the first stage of communist society.
Only at the higher stage of communism, only in its higher phase, will each one, working according to his ability, be recompensed for his work according to his needs. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”
It is quite clear that people’s needs vary and will continue to vary under socialism. Socialism has never denied that people differ in their tastes, and in the quantity and quality of their needs. Read how Marx criticized Stirner for his leaning towards equalitarianism; read Marx’s criticism of the Gotha Programme of 1875; read the subsequent works of Marx, Engels and Lenin, and you will see how sharply they attack equalitarianism. Equalitarianism owes its origin to the individual peasant type of mentality, the psychology of share and share alike, the psychology of primitive peasant “communism.” Equalitarianism has nothing in common with Marxist socialism. Only people who are unacquainted with Marxism can have the primitive notion that the Russian Bolsheviks want to pool all wealth and then share it out equally. That is the notion of people who have nothing in common with Marxism. That is how such people as the primitive “communists” of the time of Cromwell and the French Revolution pictured communism to themselves. But Marxism and the Russian Bolsheviks have nothing in common with such equalitarian “communists.”
