A Boring Dystopia

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Rent is theft (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 week ago by zedgeist@lemmy.world to c/aboringdystopia@lemmy.world

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[–] Riverside@reddthat.com 5 points 1 week ago (2 children)

What's "a fair price"? 1% over production + maintenance costs is already exploitative, in the sense that rich people who can afford to buy the flats will do so because they will get passive income from it, and poor people who can't afford housing will be forced to rent at prices higher than otherwise.

[–] Emi@ani.social 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Imo students and just people who don't want to buy. One small flat I saw is like 6k czk a month. But ideally there should be free such flats that are just room and bathroom with showers free to anyone.

[–] Riverside@reddthat.com 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The USSR had such dorms for students and people in waiting lists for housing, idk if they were technically free but the fee was ridiculous if it existed. Rent, for example, was 3% of the monthly incomes. I do think we should have such social housing, both in flat-form and in dorm-form, for whoever wants to rent a very cheap housing unit.

[–] TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world -1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

They also had an incredibly corrupt and repressive society full of black markets and very few people actually spent that little rent due to all the corruption. and just like in capitalist societies, the poor struggled paid most of their income to basic necessities and the rich paid hardly anything. housing in desirable areas and cities are hardly abundant. You wanted off the waiting lists, you had to bribe someone, often repeatedly. Bribery was illegal, but the person getting bribed would just bribe the officials and law officers.

But I mean, yeah if you wanted to be miner in Siberia and live in a shack housing was cheap. Not so much if you wanted to live Moscow or St Petersberg. That's also true of the USA. Plenty of cheap houses in crappy places nobody wants to live where there is little economic opportunity.

Roads are made, streets are made, services are improved, electric light turns night into day, water is brought from reservoirs a hundred miles off in the mountains — all the while the landlord sits still. Every one of those improvements is affected by the labor and cost of other people and the taxpayers. To not one of these improvements does the land monopolist contribute, and yet, by every one of them the value of his land is enhanced. He renders no service to the community, he contributes nothing to the general welfare, he contributes nothing to the process from which his own enrichment is derived…The unearned increment on the land is reaped by the land monopolist in exact proportion, not to the service, but to the disservice done.

[–] Riverside@reddthat.com 1 points 1 week ago

They also had an incredibly corrupt and repressive society

I've yet to find any serious study talking of "widespread corruption" in the USSR compared to countries of equal level of development. This is entirely vibes-based.

the poor struggled paid most of their income to basic necessities and the rich paid hardly anything

Income inequality was the lowest in the USSR in the history of the region, by a long shot. Again, you're making stuff up:

housing in desirable areas and cities are hardly abundant

Yes, but housing was primarily accessed through the work union. Housing near a factory went to the workers of said factory, people mainly got to live near where they worked.

You wanted off the waiting lists, you had to bribe someone

Again, as if bribes don't happen in capitalism. In capitalism, you don't "bribe" someone to get a house, you're just poor enough not to afford it and you rent for life instead. Waiting lists, while unpleasant, are the more egalitarian solution. How else do you propose distribution of limited housing in a rapidly industrializing country that's moving tens of millions of people from the countryside to cities?

But I mean, yeah if you wanted to be miner in Siberia and live in a shack housing was cheap. Not so much if you wanted to live Moscow or St Petersberg

Care to share any of that wonderful data about housing prices in Soviet Leningrad or Moscow? Regardless: your analogy of "being a miner in Siberia" is dumb. Lifestyle in the countryside and in smaller cities was highly subsidized, but that's a good thing. Now hospitals are closed, roads aren't maintained, and schools are left underfunded everywhere outside Moscow and Saint Petersburg, making life especially in non-Slavic regions of Russia much worse than it used to be. It's not that people want to move to Moscow, it's that there are no jobs or infrastructure outside three big cities, and that's really bad for many people. I don't see what you have against living in relatively minor cities like Murmansk, Ulan-Ude or Tomsk, provided there are jobs and infrastructure (which there were).

[–] TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world -4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

why is it crazy if someone is willing to pay it?

rich people exist and they can easily afford that 6K a month, even if you can't.