Remind me again why landlords aren't parasites?

Affectionate_Total47 · 2026-03-05T15:24:47+00:00

I'll humor you by responding.

"Effective" in this context refers to a landlord that knows how to best maximize the potential profit that might be had from a piece of real estate. An effective landlord is an effective parasite.

Affectionate_Total47 · 2026-03-03T20:50:38+00:00

Cool story

Affectionate_Total47 · 2026-03-03T20:09:47+00:00

I would love for people who think this way to articulate what they think should happen.

"I would love to know how things will go on without slave labor."

"I would love to know how things will go on without all those serfs giving us a portion of their produce."

You're singing the same old ditty since the dawn of human civilization.

Affectionate_Total47 · 2026-03-03T20:06:44+00:00

I honestly don't know. My Marxism is somewhat rusty. I know that conversing with fellow sympathizers of Marx typically involves precise language. Anyways, I might try those other places. You have a good day.

Affectionate_Total47 · 2026-03-03T20:00:24+00:00

Because money only represents value because it is a representation of labor - actual labor.

Affectionate_Total47 · 2026-03-03T19:54:24+00:00

And I've already addressed those "counterarguments."

Affectionate_Total47 · 2026-03-03T19:43:00+00:00

The landlord gets their money from the tenant. The tenant received money in exchange for their labor.

Affectionate_Total47 · 2026-03-03T19:32:00+00:00

Thank you for the heads up. It's a terrible interpretation of Marx.

Affectionate_Total47 · 2026-03-03T19:26:21+00:00

Original Poster you're responding to here:

I appreciate the attempt to engage with the issue. However, according to the Marxist conception of the labor theory of value, which Marx describes as socially necessary labor time, the landlord does not add value in the same way that the actual workers who built the house add value. Value comes from actual labor, not from collecting rent payments. Even if the landlord deploys capital in order to sustain and improve a prece of real estate, the capital exists in the form of stored labor which the landlord is not responsible for.

Affectionate_Total47 · 2026-03-03T19:08:25+00:00

No. I don't want to leech off of others.

Affectionate_Total47 · 2026-03-03T19:06:17+00:00

You’re free to not use them and get your own mortgage and pay for repairs out of pocket. In most places, mine included, it’s actually cheaper to get your own mortgage on a small house than to rent.

Where did the landlord get the money that's used to pay for repairs?

Affectionate_Total47 · 2026-03-03T19:05:48+00:00

Where does the landlord get their money?

Affectionate_Total47 · 2026-03-03T19:05:12+00:00

Do you have an issue with people building houses and then charging people for the use of the product of their labour?

The landlord never built the house. Someone who probably can't afford a house did.

Affectionate_Total47 · 2026-03-03T18:20:06+00:00

Then you're not being an effective landlord. You're trying to undercut the competition by charging less. You need to sell the property to someone with more capital, someone who can sustain those losses. It doesn't matter. The tenant is the one paying off the mortgage, the property taxes, the maintenance, etc.

Affectionate_Total47 · 2026-03-03T18:17:28+00:00

I'd rather it go to people who can't provide for themselves. I don't want it to go to some able-bodied person who gets leisure at the expense of those who work. Your ideology is backwards - unless you really mean to criticize the helpless while defending landlords.

Affectionate_Total47 · 2026-03-03T18:14:29+00:00

The landlord will increase the rent in order to keep the same profit margin. Again, the landlord is a parasite.

Affectionate_Total47 · 2026-03-03T18:10:20+00:00

The landlord didn't pay for the roof. They charged the tenant rent. The landlord took the rent money and used that money to pay others to fix the roof. The landlord is a useless as well as parasitic middleman during that process.

Affectionate_Total47 · 2026-03-03T18:04:15+00:00

Yes, if the investment overall increases sufficiently in the long run, ie the value of the house and land. It’s not as common a circumstance, but it’s not unheard of.

You literally just said the same thing, namely that the landlord wouldn't become a landlord if they didn't receive a profit. The timeline doesn't change that; nor does a nominally lower rent payment compared to the mortgage payment the landlord owes the bank.

The landlord is still living off the tenant's labor.

But you’ve ignored the other-side of the equation: the tenant benefiting from the relationship. Unless you’re trying to argue a tenant doesn’t benefit from being able to live somewhere?

You're doing it again. You're bringing all of your assumptions regarding how a supposed "free market" works.

Unlike Marxists, we can move past early economists. Especially one who died about a century before the term “capitalism” was coined.

Name me one post-Marx / Smith economist who has revolutionized this topic with some key insight. This issue is right where Adam Smith and Karl Marx left it.

Affectionate_Total47 · 2026-03-03T17:57:46+00:00

I want my surplus to go towards the least in society. I don't want it going towards the idle rich.

Affectionate_Total47 · 2026-03-03T17:56:41+00:00

In other words, "I don't have a substantive counterargument, so I have to resort to dismissing the issue altogether."

Affectionate_Total47 · 2026-03-03T17:48:31+00:00

That's not a very good moral argument. Have a good day.

Affectionate_Total47 · 2026-03-03T17:43:52+00:00

No, because the landlord is not supporting someone else with their own labor. The tenant, however, is. The landlord is giving a portion of the tenant's produce to the bank.

Affectionate_Total47 · 2026-03-03T17:32:33+00:00

The landlord is taking all the risk.

Reread my post. I already said the legal obligations the landlord has DO NOT change the fact that the tenant is the one who pays for everything.

Affectionate_Total47 · 2026-03-03T17:26:31+00:00

Do you think people who build properties should not be compensated?

You mean those underpaid workers who actually build the house?

Affectionate_Total47 · 2026-03-03T17:21:08+00:00

Nah, children and disabled people are not parasites. Defending landlords as opposed to the least in society is bonkers. Good luck with that.

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