Ask Prof Wolff: The Landlord Problem

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A Patron of Democracy at Work asks: "Does there exist any movement to abolish land-lording? Seems like the existence of landlords is a major part of the problem. Workers are doubly exploited. First, at work where they are not paid what their work is worth, and again, in the home where they are charged more than their dwelling is worth. An alternative could be, in addition to those that own their own homes, cooperatively-owned buildings where the tenants only pay for utilities, maintenance costs, and taxes, and/or a public housing system where housing is operated like a public utility and governed democratically."

This is Professor Richard Wolff's video response.

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“Marxism always was the critical shadow of capitalism. Their interactions changed them both. Now Marxism is once again stepping into the light as capitalism shakes from its own excesses and confronts decline.”

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Follow Wolff ONLINE:

[MichaelSharpBLACKDRUMMIKE]

Housing, education, food, transportation, Healthcare, are human rights they should be guaranteed to every human being on the planet.

[BayneBoy]

In Barbados there’s something called the HOPE program, Home Ownership Providing Energy for lower and middle income individuals. The roof has solar panels so the energy could pay for the land for about 20 years.

[OPTHolisticServices]

Thanks for what you and your team are doing...💓🍃

[keithrodgers]

Landlords or as I prefer to call it “house pimping “ is a real problem. How many landlords do not declare it as income ? Social housing is the way to go get landlords out of housing. I totally agree a change has to happen.

[nicktaylor]

I think Yanis Varoufakis once said that "You can't teach economics without also teaching history. Without historical context, economics doesn't really make sense".

So. Rent.

It's been around a long long time - but I think what happened was that during the move from Feudalism to Capitalism (and this happened in a rag-tag way over several hundred years) it was found that a hell of a lot more productivity could be squeezed out of the population by charging them rent on land, than by taxing them a % of their output. The societies that did this were able to out-compete (economically and therefore militarily) those that did not.

What we have now is less to do with any particular plan, than "what survived".

The purpose of the housing market is to force the majority of the population to work for free, which gives a competitive at a macro-economic/military level.

So part of the utility-value of "owning a house" is to buy yourself out of rent/debt-slavery.

This is back-firing now though because housing has been turned into a speculative asset - which the entire population is forced to participate in. This means that the first million everyone makes has to be sunk into song trimething non-productive. Instead of investing in innovation or production, we're sinking trillions of dollars into at best "lovely kitchens", at worst, an economic class of parasites.

So yea - we're squeezing more and more and more work out of people (which is what "rent" was always about), but that money isn't going into anything that will help our societies survive, it's all going straight back into the mechanism of coercion.

We should abolish it.

[johnlaurencepoole]

An adjunct to this issue is California's famous Proposition 13 (1978) which significantly reduced taxes and allows for a step-up in valuation when you sell. Some have said it really was a hidden tax relief for landlords who keep their rentals in their families forever (and for corporations whose lives are eternal so long as they make a profit) and thus get the benefit or marginal tax increases making each year more profitable as rents rise higher than the Prop. 13 tax assessments.

[kokokfive]

So true. Housing is the biggest problem in any capitalist society. Is a very difficult problem to solve as there are just too many greedy for-profit Capitalist controlling the market. Most of the time, social housing or Government controlled affordable housing can only be served as a bandage for a temporary solution.

[lisamertz]

The "mortgage crisis" was investment companies taking over foreclosed properties so they could get enormous rents for them.

[GhostOnTheHalfShell]

Jimmy Carter’s habitat for humanity should be a feature of municipalities everywhere. Funded by the municipalities built and owned by people in the city.

[emiebex]

Landlords essentially get paid to do nothing but own the building you live in. If tenants have the option of Collective Buying they could buy the complex from the Landlord & effectively own it themselves. Trailer Park tenants have done this to avoid Landlords selling the Trailer Park out from under them.

[clarestucki]

It's true, the public housing system works well in Vienna Austria. The reason for that is that Austrians strive to carefully maintain their public housing. They do not piss and defecate in the hallways, stairwells, and elevators of their public housing, and they do not vandalize it, the way Americans do.

[helengarrett]

Hooray for Professor Wolff. He explained the problem beautifully. Now, what will you do to fight for a decent system? Decent shelter, education, nutrition and health care are the basics necessary to a productive and happy life and these things are basic rights as important as the Constitutional Bill of Rights that guarantees us freedom of assembly, freedom of speech and other rightsv that we are entitled to as citizens in order to help us thrive in the world. Now you know what we need, what are you DOING about it?

[AGirlofYesterday]

My landlord started raising my rent as much as she legally could (it's a rent-controlled apt building) when she and her husband lost their $2 million-dollar house in a wildfire, then had to buy another $2 million-dollar house. I'm sure that was a strain on their resources and I'm sorry they lost their home. But why take their misfortune out on me? I didn't burn their house down. And clearly they are affluent enough to survive the loss comfortably.

[notrueflagshere]

The capitalist is the obnoxious middle man.

[InnerSunshine]

Vienna, Austria and Proff Wolff are the only voices worldwide for reducing the number and influence of landlords; including, their software for raising rents based on each other's increases. Readers, this is good issue to run on if you want to run for elected office 😃

[blogintonblakley]

The reason we have homeless people, is because rich people sent the jobs people need to afford houses overseas. We still have way more empty houses than homeless people, we just don't have an economy that provides enough jobs for everyone to live on.

As with most problems in our country, rich people's greed is at the heart of it.

[SnakeHandler-gu]

No one has a "right" to physical things or skilled services that other people had to provide. Not healthcare, not housing. A right is something you get to do without interference from others (speak freely, worship any God or none), it's not free goodies or even free necessities. That is not saying a rich society shouldn't provide a safety net for the poor, but it is not a right.

[shanewaters]

Raising the wage doesn't work. Because increase the wage, more people are capable of renting, and greed wins. Eventually any raise just ends up in the landlords pockets.

[s.c]

You’re right about landlording. But sadly public education is in crisis. The dumbing down of America and educating kids to hate each other (crt) puts grads into a future of education debt at best. At worst it turns out grads who can do little more than deliver fast food.. And landlords promote slums by ignoring the need to maintain property from which they exact huge rents. A grand a month for an apartment with crumbling, poop-strewn sidewalks, barren landscape, and mailboxes mangled by thieves who rob daily. Management blames postmaster, postmaster turns a blind eye and cops are indifferent. They want us subhuman and manageable.

[hs-fpvp]

Wolff's proposal is too complex. A city could buy a $10 million apartment building and charge rent that covers what it would've gotten from property taxes plus a fee for property management (maintenance, security, etc). Back-of-the-envelope calculation is that it would be < 1/2 the market rent.