499
Doesn't matter how you try to justify it...
(lemmy.world)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 31 May 2024
499 points (91.0% liked)
Lefty Memes
4520 readers
427 users here now
An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of the "ML" influence of instances like lemmy.ml and lemmygrad. This is a place for undogmatic shitposting and memes from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.
Serious posts, news, and discussion go in c/Socialism.
If you are new to socialism, you can ask questions and find resources over on c/Socialism101.
Please don't forget to help keep this community clean by reporting rule violations, updooting good contributions and downdooting those of low-quality!
Rules
0. Only post socialist memes
That refers to funny image macros and means that generally videos and screenshots are not allowed. Exceptions include explicitly humorous and short videos, as well as (social media) screenshots depicting a funny situation, joke, or joke picture relating to socialist movements, theory, societal issues, or political opponents. Examples would be the classic case of humorous Tumblr or Twitter posts/threads. (and no, agitprop text does not count as a meme)
1. Socialist Unity in the form of mutual respect and good faith interactions is enforced here
Try to keep an open mind, other schools of thought may offer points of view and analyses you haven't considered yet. Also: This is not a place for the Idealism vs. Materialism or rather Anarchism vs. Marxism debate(s), for that please visit c/AnarchismVsMarxism.
2. Anti-Imperialism means recognizing capitalist states like Russia and China as such
That means condemning (their) imperialism, even if it is of the "anti-USA" flavor.
3. No liberalism, (right-wing) revisionism or reactionaries.
That includes so called: Social Democracy, Democratic Socialism, Dengism, Market Socialism, Patriotic Socialism, National Bolshevism, Anarcho-Capitalism etc. . Anti-Socialist people and content have no place here, as well as the variety of "Marxist"-"Leninists" seen on lemmygrad and more specifically GenZedong (actual ML's are welcome as long as they agree to the rules and don't just copy paste/larp about stuff from a hundred years ago).
4. No Bigotry.
The only dangerous minority is the rich.
5. Don't demonize previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.
We must constructively learn from their mistakes, while acknowledging their achievements and recognizing when they have strayed away from socialist principles.
(if you are reading the rules to apply for modding this community, mention "Mantic Minotaur" when answering question 2)
6. Don't idolize/glorify previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.
Notable achievements in all spheres of society were made by various socialist/people's/democratic republics around the world. Mistakes, however, were made as well: bureaucratic castes of parasitic elites - as well as reactionary cults of personality - were established, many things were mismanaged and prejudice and bigotry sometimes replaced internationalism and progressiveness.
- Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:
- Racism
- Sexism
- Queerphobia
- Ableism
- Classism
- Rape or assault
- Genocide/ethnic cleansing or (mass) deportations
- Fascism
- (National) chauvinism
- Orientalism
- Colonialism or Imperialism (and their neo- counterparts)
- Zionism
- Religious fundamentalism of any kind
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
I'm not completely against the concept of renting. But imo the property should be owned either by the inhabitant of it, or the state. And then the state employs a custodian in charge of repairs and administration (you know, the only useful aspects of a landlord), while renting it out for a low price. And in order to keep prices a s low as possible, maintenance is supplemented by a tax.
The problem with private landlords of one or two extra properties, while they're often not morally bankrupt, is that they tend to be wholly inept at the custodian part. Plus, if properties are all owned in small numbers rather than organized on the large scale, that's just very inefficient.
That does sound like it would be of benefit but I'm not sure how realistic it is to set up a system like this and it work for everyone - would the government just start buying property off people? Would that crash or balloon the market? How do you ensure that families aren't priced out of moving home either by higher property prices (from the government buying up everything) or from a catastrophic crash caused by no one wanting to buy property as investments?
Also how would the government provide attractive housing options across the economic spectrum across the whole of the country? Sounds like a monstrously large government department would need to be formed, which amongst other things would be very inefficient and goes against the objectives of the government. Take for example state health care- there is only one tier of care, and if you want anything better you pay for it privately. If we had the same for housing but didn't have the private option then in all liklihood the government would be thrown out and the next one would be the one who promises private housing. Because like it or not, the middle class doesn't want to live like the working class.
As I said, there a lot of battles to win and I think this anti-landlord stuff is just short sighted because there is no realistic solution that could be implemented today even if a country was willing - which it isn't. Instead we should focus on fighting the smaller fights that would lead us towards the utopia: rent control, taxation, foreign "investors", empty dwellings, single-family properties etc....all of these things could be vastly improved today for the benefit of everyone except those leaching on society.
You could still have different prices, albeit lower ones. Renting then becomes part of a resources allocation game. If you want a bigger/more luxurious home, you pay more and have less for other things. If a fancy house isn't so important to you, you can get a cheaper one and have more money left for vacations, fine dining, cinema, etc.
As for the efficiency, that government department could take lessons from big property owners and organize like them, only with state subsidies and without profit goals. That way, the middle class, by virtue of having more money, could still afford better housing. Also, I don't want the middle class to live like the working class, I want the working class to live like the middle class. Also also, there's no "middle class", only parts of the working class that got lucky. But they're fundamentally still beholden to their employers' whims.
Incremental change withing the current system is good and important, but we nonetheless have to discuss the big break that has to occur at some point, and what comes after. Incremental change can only take us so far.