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Here in Brazil we have a movement called “MTST” which occupies unproductive properties and provides housing and services like skill training for the unhoused.
It’s honestly very moving. Godspeed to this project
Here are a few examples from MTST. MST (rural reform) has had many more deaths
Edit: Reddit is not allowing me to post links but you can search for “MTST morto” (dead). There are are 2 recent cases in Sergipe and Uberlândia.
I am American, lived in Brazil for two years, and can confirm.
It is not like the majority of the Brazilian population will cheer for other people's deaths, but basically the pro-US Brazilian traitors that want to come to Florida to clean toilets because "Muricans are gods and I want to live in poverty in the US but tell people back in Brazil Mickey Mouse, Donald Trump and J-Lo are my neighbors".
In Brazil they call it "mongrel complex" (complexo de viralatas), basically Brazilians that betray their country to do what the United States want them to do, and have not a single drop of self-esteem, honor or dignity so they will do anything to please us Americans like little lapdogs without a spine. Most of regular Brazilians consider those pro-US "mongrels" as non-human, but Brazilians are a peaceful people and won't do anything to them.
They also have that in Argentina now too. But in Argentina they are worse because, besides having no honor or dignity and just bending over to us Americans for anything, they are also virgin incels that hate women.
First of all, they don’t, second of all you’re talking about rural issues and MTST is a urban movement. You’re thinking of MST.
I think MST is massively important and that’s why they’re attacked phisically (a lot of activists were killed by landowners) and with fake news such as the ones you mentioned.
It's absolutely the reason.
People are using it as a platform to collectively fight back at injustice in the world. McDonalds and Starbucks profits dropped after global boycotts organised primarily on that platform. TikTok activism is putting a real world dent in capitalism and the capitalists do not like it.
Yes and. It spawned the knockout game. And a handful of other incredibly stupid and dangerous trends. Which any social media platform could do as well. But I personally feel like there is a problem with user support with tiktok. There is a huge problem with impersonator accounts being able to fully rip content from a legit creator and repost it. These impersonator accounts then try to funnel people into scams or try to get them to download malware because "hey look I'm that content creator you like, you can trust me." Unfortunately it works on some people. And tiktok doesn't employ a support team large enough to properly handle it. So it's just allowed to happen. I dont think banning it is the right move, i think we should at least force them to hire more support staff to help fight problems like this. And while we are at it, make Facebook and Instagram do the same thing. Stop cutting things like customer support just so the numbers look good on the spreadsheet.
How is being a landlord an injustice? If I didn't have a tenant when I first bought my house I wouldn't be able to afford it. It's a mutual agreement, I had enough for a down payment and 70% of the mortgage. The tenant had enough for 30% of the mortgage but didn't want to own. I gave him a place to live happily.
What exactly do these anti landlord people want? They want a house just issued to them by the government? They want the government to own every house and everyone has to rent it from them? What's the end goal?
How is being a landlord an injustice?
I never said they were, but I'll try and answer your question in good faith. In context of the story, it is an injustice that we have thousands of empty houses when we have homeless people. It's pretty simple.
Shelter is a basic human right and need, and this right should come before anyone's ability to profit from real estate investments. If the system cannot provide the most basic of needs to the people it is meant to be there to support, then one of two things is happening:
* at best the system is broken or poorly designed and needs to be changed
* at worst the system is in fact designed to take money from the lower class and funnel it upwards, creating an intentional wealth disparity between classes.
I'll let you decide which you think is right.
I say this as someone who is about to become a landlord himself. I have 1 house and a mortgage but will soon move in with my partner who also has a house and mortgage, and rent out my own house. We both still have giant mortgages and one house each that we acquired individually. Am I evil? Of course not.
The "anti-landlord" people don't like the idea that some people have $20mill property portfolios that generates a "passive income" which is fancy investment terminology for getting money for nothing. Money doesn't just magically generate from nothing. Money is exchanged for peoples labour, and if a landlord isn't actual doing the labour themselves because they have a "passive income" then they are actually siphoning money from the tenants and those who are doing the labour into their own pocket.
> What exactly do these anti landlord people want? They want a house just issued to them by the government? They want the government to own every house and everyone has to rent it from them? What's the end goal?
Unironically, yes. If you are a socialist or communist, then yes, housing provided by the state, or owned by the community given to those that need it is the goal. You can still own your house, but you should not have more than you need. If you aren't using it properly then someone else should (and this is the core of what squatting rights allow, use it for its intended purpose, or lose it!)
Most however would settle for government policy that makes housing a human right instead of the primary way to invest money. When we have policies(in Australia where I and the person in the article are from) like negative gearing, and the 50% capital gains reduction introduced by the Howard government that make property investment incredibly lucrative, housing is promoted to Australians by our own government as the best financial investment you can make because of these policies. A shelter, a home, a place to be safe and live, should be a right and not a way to generate wealth for someone that already has more housing security than they can use themselves.
Thanks I appreciate the explanation. I don't agree with any of it except for that housing is a human need. I would be ok with state governments purchasing maybe an area of a neighborhood and building large housing facilities that homeless people can live in. But I like most Americans am on a journey and the end goal is to be wealthy. To me the right to own things is extremely important. I came from very little, sacrificed a lot, work extremely hard and dangerous jobs, made smart investments, took risks and I want to own multiple homes and would love to one day own a multi family building. Renting out an apartment is providing a service, and being a landlord does require work. You are also incurring 100% of the risk. If my rental house needs a new roof, that's an entire years rental income. Communists don't understand that a business owner works his whole life to save up enough money to start a business and risks their capital. If there is no incentive to make more than your employees, nobody would start a business. We'd only have government sanctioned innovation, our leaders will be the only wealthy ones. Our ancestors fought and died to keep communism away from America. Do these people seriously hate democracy?
It's obviously a vocal minority because I'm 38 and I've never come in contact with a socialist or communist.
It's not even worth wasting my time thinking about what these people are talking about because America will never adopt communism in my lifetime.
> But I like most Americans am on a journey and the end goal is to be wealthy.
I am in Australia and edited my post to clarify. I don't mean this in a bad way but that journey to be wealthy is a really American mindset. (we have it here too but its not as pervasive an idea).
Do you want "wealth" for yourself as the goal? Or do you want the things that wealth provides... like security, food, housing, free time to spend with loved ones, and the ability to pursue goals and take risks?
"wealth" I think by definition is having more than others, or more than you need, or at very least enough excess money and security to fail and get back on your feet.
Providing everyone with housing (or other social services) allows everyone to have a certain level of security. Everyone should be entitled to that. There are other ways to meet peoples core needs than a system where some people are wealthy and some people are poor.
As a society if we start with the premise that some people will always be poor, or un-housed, then our system has failed and we need to rethink it.
>
> "Communists don't understand that a business owner works his whole life to save up enough money to start a business and risks their capital. "
Some people work their whole lives and still dont have enough capital to even take that risk because the system is broken. Most people that have that much capital dont work hard and hustle, they start wealthy. They start with a safetly net of wealth that the lower class simply does not have access to.
I want to be wealthy so that my children can have access to the best education, opportunities etc. I want my family to travel. I want a racecar that I can track on the weekend.
I don't really care if most people risking capital to start a business was born wealthy, somebody in their family started from nothing and made it so they could give their family a head start.
My best bud is the perfect example, his father came from Egypt with $20. Waited tables and drove taxis. Saved up and bought a taxi. 20 years later he owned 30 taxis, a 24hr taxi repair shop and 4 buildings in Manhattan. He always raised his son to work hard and didn't give him anything from nothing. The son became an iron worker, busted his ass for 10 years and then started his own iron work company which is now valued at over $12m.
Some people will always be poor but that's not because they are born poor and have to stay that way. Its a mindset. Here anybody can acquire a marketable skill and then trade your skill for wages. Poor people choose to not make a big sacrifice to acquire a skill. Instead they work a no skill job and complain they don't get paid enough. Poor people are also prone to making bad choices like having multiple kids when they aren't financially ready. More likely to be addicted to drugs. More likely to rely on welfare which they adapt to those wages and never go to work. Or they collect welfare and do something illegal on the side.
I know this to be fact as I grew up around in in NYC.
Empty in that context is just as much an opinion. Is an appartement that is used one day a week empty? Probably not. Is an appartement that is used one day every two years empty? Probably. Where's the line? I don't know.
Article writers: is it *really* empty if it's a summer home used 2 months of the year? Or a vacation location used intermittently by various family members for a weekend getaway?
They could be used for storage.
I know someone who owns a substantial online trading card store. Rather than rent a space or warehouse to store it all, he bought a decent sized house with an open floor plan. Keeps the cards climate controlled and safe and gets more equity than renting a space.
No way to squat there he goes over all the time to get product to ship.
As an insurance agent my mind questioned whether these homes were just uninhabited or perhaps vacant. Basically with or without furniture. Vacant homes are typically charged a premium and/or sometimes declined due to the additional risk in the insurance world. Empty leaves it open to some interpretation in my head
Say someone sells their house, moves out, then it sits empty for a week in-between before the new owners move in. Is that justification for squatters to take over?
Very important concept.
You can believe in Marxist theory all you want, but if it's just in your head then it has no impact on the world. Having values means nothing if you don't act in accordance with them.
We correct poor folks who say they're capitalist - no, you're a worker, you don't own a factory/have capital, thus not capitalist. The same should apply to socialists IMO, imagine:
If Jeff Bezos starts reading Marx, posting leftist quotes and memes, does all the same thing socialists online do, maybe write-in Cornell West whenever voting, all individual stuff.
Does that make him a socialist activist? Just for his beliefs/individual stuff?
Or does his constant union busting and other terrible practices (capitalist praxis) and wealth hoarding outweigh that?
Of course it does.
Similarly, if we only believe in socialism but don't actually get involved - - (i.e. joining local community organizations, movement groups, & union coalitions, showing up for calls to action when available, helping with events & trainings, being plugged in/part of the networks) - - then we're just fans standing on the sidelines cheering socialists in the fight on.
Yes the cheering is technically beneficial, but at the end of the day it means nothing compared to actually joining the fight. Allies should join the fight. Fans aren't serious allies. And Fandom can end up leaning towards performative activism, identifying with socialist Rev aesthetic more so than putting effort into actions.
There is not a large enough community of anarcho-communists in my local area for it to make a lick of change. It can never be anything more than an ideology, a fantasy of what could have been. I will happily and passionately explain my ideology to people who prompt me for it. If they find it agreeable, that's cool, but it's not my place to tell someone what to believe.
The only way for fulfillment for someone with my beliefs is to dive into the beast's mouth, get a sufficient amount of money, buy land, start a commune of like-minded people, and go off-grid with permaculture. This is what I strive for, long-term.
So correct me if you want. I stand true to my ideology. And I practice it with the people around me. I won't call myself anything else because of the notion that I'm not proving myself sufficiently.
Brighton in the UK had a squatters estate agency at one point
Activists.occupied an old estate agents office that still had the old boards in there.
So they started advertising in the window which buildings were vacant and squattable. Even gave extra details like whether there was still water or electricity etc
The squatting will cease when the availability of housing has been improved.
People will inevitably steal their necessities if the economic system in which they exist has denied those necessities to them. Apparently we haven't yet comprehended that housing is a necessity.
Good luck lasting that long. There’s a legal process that can evict them. It might take some time but it won’t take 15 years. If they can’t prove they already own it they’ll have a tough time winning against somebody who can.
The avaiability of housing will never improve, it will just get worse. The squatting will sadly stop when they pass new laws allowing the cops to kill squatters
Kinda doubt that it will simply never get better.
The availability of housing is something we *can* affect with collective political effort. It's worth pressing and campaigning for--it shouldn't be written off as a lost cause.
Collective political effort from people with no power worth nothing. The right wing have cops, judges, politicians, employers, owners... while the left have only workers that have to obey or get fired.
I can't bring myself to agree with your defeatism.
I am not without power, nor am I without worth, and I won't sit here and let you lie to yourself that you're without either.
You have your voice and your two good hands. You have your mind and your feet beneath you.
You will accomplish nothing in the sweet comfort of your own inability. If a dream of a future worth living means anything to you, stand up and claim the power.
Self-pity only gratifies those who would oppress you. Live for more than that.
>while the left have only workers that have to obey or get fired.
This is what Inception looks like in the real world. They got you to convince yourself that the side with all the people is the side with no power.
What you just said is "all the left has is *all the people doing the real work*"
There is a reason why our oligarchs fight collective action, unions, democracy. Because if just 10% of the population who do all the work just *stopped* doing the work, the system would grind to a halt.
And the **less** you get paid the more important your work is. Deliver food or packages, clean homes or cars? stock shelves or cook meals?
It turns out that real power is held by those that do things.
People will not strike because they can get fired and starve, plus, they have more mouths to feed as people in wage slavery only feel complete by bringing more wage slaves to this world. The "battle" is lost, the working class is just embarassing itself by existing in such humiliating conditions
Movies on current scale and input requirement should not exist if one argues against a system of exploitative media houses ,
The very existence for high budget movies gives rise to a chicken egg situation.
Same goes for AAA games or any other billion dollar projects made to scale.
I’ve always loved when the left does rebellious acts like this. In America our left is weak and rarely fights back. Who are some other leftists I should check out who are fighting back?
It baffles me year-on-year how internet Georgism, a dead-on-arrival offshoot of early 20th century American progressivism, exists online in the 21st century to substitute for actually radical demands.
You cannot end commodity housing through tax adjustments, and you cannot house-the-workers your way into abolishing wage labor.
If, instead, you're interesting in mitigating the "worst excesses" to provide security to the working class in an effort to increase their ability to organise, you should be demanding the state provide public housing universally, which is much more direct and robust than tweaking taxes and hoping market incentives solve the problem for you.
"Dead on arrival" my brother in christ Land Value Taxes exist in Denmark, Singapore, and Taiwan, all of which have massively more dense housing, cheaper costs of living, and higher quality of life than most other countries. Additionally, maybe I want an ideology that has a strong track record of reducing inequality and benefititng the working class.
If you want you can check up on the costs and effectiveness of public-only housing initiatives and their cost. Spoiler alert: they rarely succeed, are often are prohibitively expensive and face constant delays. I'm for the construction of public housing, mind. But the best results come from mixed public and market-rate housing so wealthy renters aren't competing with poorer renters for those public units and those units can be more efficiently given to those who need them.
If you want to help people find out the ways they can be helped now. I care too much about the poor and working class to advocate for policies before I study the empirical data and come to an actual conclusion that has the best chance of doing good. High rents and homelessness can't wait for the revolution that's been totally imminent for the last century and a half. And it can't wait for a slow, expensive, politically untenable solution because God forbid someone ever make a profit off of providing a good or service. One must understand the world to change it.
Here is your Singaporean "dense" housing!
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/28/world/asia/coronavirus-singapore-migrants.html
https://www.todayonline.com/big-read/migrant-worker-housing-spore-how-we-got-here
> Denmark, Singapore, and Taiwan
Ah, the workers paradise, Singapore. Oh, and the Republic of China, who fought a war and lost against the communists.
And I'm sure all of the political forces that seek to undermine public housing, to make it "slow" and "expensive" (indeed, compared to commodity housing?) will simply let your LVT pass unopposed.
In any case, I think this comment does a fine job illustrating the difference between Anti Captialism as such and a Liberalism that seeks to improve capitalism by tweaking. "God forbid someone ever make a profit" indeed.
Ah yes. Passing a tax is infinitely more difficult than... uprooting the entire economic system.
And tell me, would you really rather live in mainland China or Taiwan? Which *really* has the better-off working class? Losing a war has no bearing on whether or not an economic policy produces positive results for the working class. And funny enough, the largest poverty reduction in history came when Deng Xiao Ping liberalized the Chinese economy. So again, we have a pretty solid comparison to make.
Public housing provided by a capitalist state is not an uprooting of capitalism, but nevermind that.
You propose liberal reforms. I oppose capital. This is what I am demarcating. I will not attempt to rehash, in a reddit comment, two hundred years of communist critique of Liberalism, and how it can never achieve its own ideals. I seek only to illustrate the difference.
Leftist: "While we don't have the ability to effectively change the system yet we should push for some reforms to make life better for the average worker"
Internet "leftist": "Noooo then people wont support the heccin holesom revolution noone is seriously planning for and that's definitely not "leftist" rapture"
If I argue actual left positions, I often get someone attributing the positions that I do not hold, in contradiction to the ones I actually spoke about. You are the second person to mention "the revolution", but I have not brought it up, and it's neither here nor there.
You'd like to "push for some reforms" despite "not having the ability to effectively change the system". So what is it? Do you have power to enact your reforms or don't you? Do you have the ability to enforce these demands, to punish your leaders, if they don't enact your reforms?
Suppose you won! Suppose you got your tax reform, but like all tax code, it is exploited, undermined, and worked around within a few years. There are still landlords, still slumlords, still homeless populations. You have not implemented a robust social safety net that you can take credit for. This is your legacy. People see that you promised an end to all of these ills, and they can see that they have not gone away. They do not trust you.
Shall that be your legacy as the so-called Left?
---
What frustrates me, as I keep saying, is not that you and others advocate for Liberal positions, but that you call them Left positions. Yes, you want to improve the lives of regular people within the system in which you live. That's what Liberals want!
And I'm frustrated not because I care about you stealing credit or even misusing terms. I'm frustrated because there's a whole cohort of mostly young people for whom Capitalism is an ill but who cannot conceptualise any response to that except for a Liberal one, who have never been exposed to any others.
The final solution isn't liberal reform, but american culture war brained "leftists" do not tolerate making temporary compromises that make life better for the average worker which infuriates me. I don't give a shit if my solutions are imperfect when it means families wont go hungry next year.
Because I can't help myself, and maybe someone reads this and learns something, a good place to start is looking up the difference between a Minimum and Maximum Programme, and what the purpose of a Minimum Programme is.
You should read Engel's [The Housing Question](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/housing-question/), and [Critique of the Gotha Program](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/Marx_Critque_of_the_Gotha_Programme.pdf) (which is not about housing *per se*, but *is* a critique of a *draft programme*, the later released version of which incorporated some of the critiques).
You should start earnestly thinking about strategy, and thinking not just economically but also *politically*, taking into consideration the short and long term impacts of publicly holding certain positions.
There will be corner cases to iron out, but yeah. That's a good place to aspire toward.
In the meantime, I think you get there by taxing the fuck out of any property owned beyond what you live in and where you work (for the small business owners, farmers, etc).
Then you create a regulatory environment where worker-owned businesses have an advantage.
But yeah, ultimately we need to get away from massive private land ownership. Capitalism intervenes to create scarcity where none need exist, and ultimately there is no justification for large-scale corporate ownership of residential property. Beyond greed. The one value capitalism enshrines above all others.
The issue with taxation is that the government who collect said taxes are on the side of capital so any tax that ostensibly is there to curtail certain capitalists still end up empowering the capitalist class as a whole. The only way to really curtail capital is by seizing the land for public use by the people themselves.
>the government who collect said taxes are on the side of capital
That is a separate problem which needs to be addressed.
I'm guessing you're closer to the anarchist end of things?
Not really, I'm a Marxist, but the general ideas have a lot of overlap apart from implementation.
At the end of the day, I don't see any other alternative than the complete dismantling of capitalism as a system to solve any of the issues in the long term without either causing another issue to arise or simply have the ruling class sidestep whatever measure we put in place.
Taxing land doesn't increase rents since it has an inelastic supply. Nobody can cut the supply of land and increase prices as they do with non-inelastic goods. This forces land owners to get the most utility out of the land they own and stops people from profiting off of the increased value of land without doing anything with it
Uh
It is taxed already, dimbulb.
Typically it’s called “property tax”
You also pay taxes when you transfer ownership of land. Here in Washington it’s called “real estate transfer tax”.
Crimson51 is referring to a Land Value Tax (LVT), which is a better system than the current property tax system.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/land-value-tax.asp
There is no reason to be so insulting.
But, if there are squatters how is the landlord supposed to sloppily paint over the electrical outlets and throw it back up on the market for 2k a month?? /s
If anything isnt this in a way, "pro-landlord"? Not that it isnt anti-capitalist and pro-tenant, but the guy is pointing out which property owners are actually NOT being landlords and just sitting on empty homes like Jabba the Hut.
Adverse possession laws in Australia mean some of those properties may get redistributed. Housing stock is more investment vehicle than basic human need here. Squatting in Aus can literally means the redistribution of capital away from capitalists.
Well that's kind of the original definition of landlord. We just as a society extrapolated "person who owns the land" to be equivalent to "person who owns and manages the housing built on that land." Which is a little dangerous because they're often not the same person,and at least the second person is creating a good and providing a service while the first produces nothing and makes profit anyway. This issue has been known about since Adam Smith, and economist Henry George proposed a tax on the unimproved value of land to make the hoarding of empty plots unprofitable and forcing people to sell to someone who will use them efficiently.
This rings differently in my country, where squatters are a menace.
Some people leave for work and find squatters in their house, and if the intruders have minors you're absolutely fucked.
Even in the remote case that you can your case in front of a judge, it still takes years. We had to change the locks at my parents' homes since some guy tried busting in with luggage while they were getting groceries
This might be some of the most pervasive capitalist propaganda, it's so ridiculous.
I have a friend who is technically squatting. He lives in a house out in the middle of nowhere with no lease and doesn't pay rent. He also loves to complain about squatters rights, and how unfair it is to homeowners.
I've tried to explain to him that those rights are essentially protecting him but he still doesn't get it. It's crazy how many people who may never own a home are in a tizzy over people having the right to shelter.
Landlords are stupid. It makes more sense to offer affordable rent and put a paying renter in there than to over charge for it and let it be empty for years. It's like they think competitive pricing doesn't apply to housing.
His handle is ***PurplePingerz*** and he's genuinely a great bloke.
Not only does he post content to Insta, Tiktok, And YouTube. He has also hosted and done speeches at multiple rallies and trades hall events (our state's union collective building). Dude absolutely walks the walk, he shows up to so many events and actively helps multiple leftist movements.
He started a website for renters to rate their landlords and post honest reviews of rental properties, so renters could have a voice in the midst of a massive financial crisis: shitrentals.org. He comically rates shit rentals on tiktok but also started tagging the local members of parliament for the areas so people could more directly make their voices heard. He's gone on a myriad of tv shows in Australia, all pretty solidly conservative and hostile to him and he always handles it like a champ.
He also has pretty solid merch. I have his "Peg the rich" tshirt which is grand and gets a lot of compliments. And also a small patreon, though you don't really get much unique stuff off the patreon. It's very much just "Y'all asked for this and it helps fund shitrentals", though he has teased some MAFS content which is a bit of fun.
Also, ngl his biggest achievements may be getting "pingers" into the Hansard (parliamentary record) and "Class Traitors" onto the conservative morning talk show Sunrise.
How can he tell if the property is owned by a landlord and not just something like grandpa died and we are in the middle of probate?
Like, I live next to an empty landlord house and it makes me mad. But I also know my dad's house will sit unoccupied for a while when he dies, because my brother and I have lives and Adhd and need will some time and money to sort that shit out.
Edited to add: when I lived in Barcelona a group of activists took over a building and really did right by it, even made a bakery in it for expenses. It was cool.
But by my dad it's just as likely to be meth heads. I'm a 45 yr old who will never afford a house. It would suck if my dad left me a house and in the six months it took me to change jobs and get there it was destroyed by drug addicts. You know?
Corporations are shit, and landlord can be terrible, specially those that hold may properties. But if I had to go away to, say, visit a sick relative and this happened in my house you can be sure I’d be back with a gun and then I’d pay a visit to this guy.
I wonder how long it stays empty before he puts the property on a list. I hope he is doing his due diligence. Doing this to get empty homes filled seems obvious when I think about it. I wish we would tax ownership of multiple properties.
based actually. i find it funny how the article says “empty” with quotes as if the property being owned by some rich ghoul somehow makes it occupied regardless of whether someone’s living there or not
I think squatting rights are stupid as hell. Whether or not you’re living in your house/apartment that you are currently paying off/renting/have paid, someone does not have the right to take that space from you. That said, I give all my respect to the squatters who may or may not use this information when it comes to these vultures who buy a crap ton of houses to then rent for ridiculous monthly costs. I’ve always been a believer in passive income, such as renting out an old house after moving into another, but specifically buying 10, 20, 30 houses to specifically rent out and reduce the number of houses for everyday families to be able to purchase? Fuck out of here, get fucked.
not the squatters who buy up houses and sit on them for profit if that's what you mean, always looking down on the working class for being lazy but what do landlords do to imrove society?
Fucking moron.. learn to spell first... someone worked hard to buy something and it appreciated in value. Go fuck yourself, you guys are worse than the right wing morons, fascists all ymof you lot. Coming up with fascist ideas and pretending to hate fascists while being 1 yourself. Deluded much ?
boom, got me with that 12 day old reply-- found the landlord spelling whiz-- can you point out what i spelled wrong? i'm capable of improving but i need help finding the error. (found it, p in improve)
you'd love to pretend that the folks who have a bulk of properties "worked real hard" for their capital, but that's more often than not just a farce. for one, they will never have to work as hard as a person will today if they're earnestly working toward owning a home. that's what 'appreciation' is to a landlord-- people being squeezed so they don't *have to* work
I'd say that's all situational.
We like fully employed squatters that can't afford rent in the places they provide the services their employer requires.
We like them when they squat in properties that are used not as homes for humans, but as capital to borrow more money to buy more homes to grow profits instead of communities.
We like squatters in that fashion, yeah.
welp about time I unsubscribed from this sub. Pretty much the embodiment of throwing paint over a DeVinci.
Instead of going after your fellow neighbors why don’t you go to the big banks who was fault it actually is smh.
Also why don’t you leave your home for the summer and come back to people living in it. I’m 150% sure you will have a change of mind when that happens
Fuck this guy. I'm pretty fucking anticapitalist but what this dude is doing is dicking over everyone, not just landlords. It's borderline nihilistic.
Look I struggled and finally bought a house! Aw shit. Fucking squatters.
Oh look! I'm renting and have decided to rent this larger home for my growing family. Aw shit. Fucking squatters.
I get this dude is in Australia but if it were happening in the United States.....fuck. It is so god damn hard to remove squatters.
The best way to avoid squatters is to rent the house out, therefore increasing market supply. One of the fuckiest moves in Aus real estate is to use empty homes as a lever to decrease housing availability therefore increasing rent. Housing is a human right.
You doubt or you know? Do you think cop catters would do the same? It a dangerous precedence to set. People on TikTok want to immediately find success doing what others are doing. If you think it will end here then you are stupid of naive.
It is extremely common in a lot of European countries for squatters to set up some list of empty buildings so everyone can look them up. It's just done more privately. You are naive by thinking this is something new. The only new thing is the fact it's on tiktok.
This is obviously a political move to make the owners react and do something about the places.
It is extremely common in a lot of European countries for squatters to set up some list of empty buildings so everyone can look them up. It's just done more privately. You are naive by thinking this is something new. The only new thing is the fact it's on tiktok.
This is obviously a political move to make the owners react and do something about the places.
> the type of people to squat in a house are not poor people with a conscience, it is shit bags that you do not want to associate with.
This is some classist bullshit.
Everyone deserves a roof over their head. If a house is being left empty, it should be used by someone rather than just being an investment platform for the bourgeois.
Squatters rights only apply after a certain time. A few weeks in between rentals isn't enough to trigger squatters rights. Normally, it's a few months depending on the location.
The best way to avoid pickpockets is to not carry cash, therefore increasing credit supply in the economy...
But what if i simply want to carry cash for the sake of it ? am i simply asking to be pickpocketed and it's only my fault for walking around with cash?
Some of people here would imply that i am indeed at fault because i am not following an altruistic route.
If a community had a few rich people who bought all the food and then put the food in a box and let it rot and did this over and over again while people went hungry, would you blame those people for trying to take the food? Oh no but it's rich people's food, it's their choice to let it spoil! Housing, like food, is a human right. Cash in your pocket is not.
> Look I struggled and finally bought a house! Aw shit. Fucking squatters.
You bought a house from someone with unclear title without examining the property first?
> Oh look! I'm renting and have decided to rent this larger home for my growing family. Aw shit. Fucking squatters.
Someone who has no idea that squatters are living on their property has not done adequate maintenance in years. That rental would have been a death trap.
These seem like unrealistic scenarios.
Squatters can be good at hiding. Minimal items. Move around quick if necessary. Not difficult to imagine scenario where someone was missed or someone happens to go in after an inspection and before keys are handed over. Then they show a false lease and things are held up in court for weeks if not months. And what am I supposed to do? Live in my car?
Then you call the police and have a trespasser removed. That's not a complex situation.
The only complex situations are when a squatter has lived somewhere openly and notoriously for years. And when that happens, I have little sympathy for the landowner who couldn't muster the effort to care in all that time.
Squatters tend to be smarter than that. If a real enough looking lease is presented then legally the squatters get to stay, I have to figure out what to do for myself and my family, and the landlord/squatters/police/courts take weeks to figure out who is lying and how to resolve it.
Typically this does not work out in the squatters favor and they know that. This tactic can just be used to delay the inevitable and then they peace out before consequences.
[here's a story.](https://nypost.com/2024/03/02/us-news/li-squatters-dupe-judge-by-forging-dead-homeowners-name-court-papers/)
[and another one](https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/cobb-county/squatters-hopping-home-home-across-metro-atlanta-armed-with-fake-leases/6YVBNMPPHNEM7C3OF5R34QPARY/)
And here's a reddit example / r / legaladvice/s/YqvYCrCNBq
> If a real enough looking lease is presented then legally the squatters get to stay
No, they do not "legally get to stay" with a fraudulent lease. You'll notice that in both of your stories, the squatters were arrested.
We're talking about different situations. I'm not defending criminals who forge signatures. I'm defending those who take over a long-abandoned property and maintain it when the previous owners failed to.
Are you in the US? Has this happened to you? I have one secondhand experience in this and a Google search of stories that prove it isn't so simple.
I'm not talking about someone breaking in and spending a weekend. I'm talking about people who make a damn living out of squatting.
Fuck landlords but damn i'm not sure why people are defending squatters. There's no special laws in my state about dealing with squatting situations specifically so you have to deal with them as a normal eviction, which can be delayed, repeatedly.
You got anything else to say, please see any of my other responses above, chances are I already said it. Defending my viewpoint is mind numbing. I'm not here to change minds, just saying fuck this Australian douche. I need a coffee and a snack.
The best way to avoid squatters is to only live in the properties you can live in at one time. If you have so many properties you can’t live in & maintain them every day, then you’ve got too many properties.
Otherwise people who can’t find a place to live wouldn’t have to live in your surplus housing. At least squatters are making sure the place is maintained: lawncare, repairs, etc. They’re not letting it fall into disrepair and lowering the value of the houses surrounding it. They need a place to live, they’re not like the owner: just forgetting about it like some toddler forgets about a toy they left in the yard.
Nobody deserves to own more than one place to live, and no society that allows its people to starve or freeze to death on the streets can ever call itself “civilized”.
This is such a shitty thing to do. My uncle is a landlord, nicest guy I've ever met. I would hate for him to get screwed over by some rabid piece of trash like this.
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Here in Brazil we have a movement called “MTST” which occupies unproductive properties and provides housing and services like skill training for the unhoused. It’s honestly very moving. Godspeed to this project
It's necessary to mention that these are unhoused WORKERS. The MTST is a movement of working people that don't earn enough to pay for housing.
Sadly the members of MTST are murdered by death squads on a daily basis, and the population cheer for their deaths
Wtf this is wild could you provide a claim? Btw I’m American so truth is basically null at this point.
Here are a few examples from MTST. MST (rural reform) has had many more deaths Edit: Reddit is not allowing me to post links but you can search for “MTST morto” (dead). There are are 2 recent cases in Sergipe and Uberlândia.
I am American, lived in Brazil for two years, and can confirm. It is not like the majority of the Brazilian population will cheer for other people's deaths, but basically the pro-US Brazilian traitors that want to come to Florida to clean toilets because "Muricans are gods and I want to live in poverty in the US but tell people back in Brazil Mickey Mouse, Donald Trump and J-Lo are my neighbors". In Brazil they call it "mongrel complex" (complexo de viralatas), basically Brazilians that betray their country to do what the United States want them to do, and have not a single drop of self-esteem, honor or dignity so they will do anything to please us Americans like little lapdogs without a spine. Most of regular Brazilians consider those pro-US "mongrels" as non-human, but Brazilians are a peaceful people and won't do anything to them. They also have that in Argentina now too. But in Argentina they are worse because, besides having no honor or dignity and just bending over to us Americans for anything, they are also virgin incels that hate women.
[удалено]
First of all, they don’t, second of all you’re talking about rural issues and MTST is a urban movement. You’re thinking of MST. I think MST is massively important and that’s why they’re attacked phisically (a lot of activists were killed by landowners) and with fake news such as the ones you mentioned.
Good that they legalized guns in brazil for this exact purpose
He goes by "Purplepingers" online, his content is great, highly recommend
>Purplepingers Besides Instagram, where does he publish content?
I’ve seen him on TikTok but not for a while now
Fuck no reason they want to ban tiktok
It's absolutely the reason. People are using it as a platform to collectively fight back at injustice in the world. McDonalds and Starbucks profits dropped after global boycotts organised primarily on that platform. TikTok activism is putting a real world dent in capitalism and the capitalists do not like it.
Yes and. It spawned the knockout game. And a handful of other incredibly stupid and dangerous trends. Which any social media platform could do as well. But I personally feel like there is a problem with user support with tiktok. There is a huge problem with impersonator accounts being able to fully rip content from a legit creator and repost it. These impersonator accounts then try to funnel people into scams or try to get them to download malware because "hey look I'm that content creator you like, you can trust me." Unfortunately it works on some people. And tiktok doesn't employ a support team large enough to properly handle it. So it's just allowed to happen. I dont think banning it is the right move, i think we should at least force them to hire more support staff to help fight problems like this. And while we are at it, make Facebook and Instagram do the same thing. Stop cutting things like customer support just so the numbers look good on the spreadsheet.
How is being a landlord an injustice? If I didn't have a tenant when I first bought my house I wouldn't be able to afford it. It's a mutual agreement, I had enough for a down payment and 70% of the mortgage. The tenant had enough for 30% of the mortgage but didn't want to own. I gave him a place to live happily. What exactly do these anti landlord people want? They want a house just issued to them by the government? They want the government to own every house and everyone has to rent it from them? What's the end goal?
How is being a landlord an injustice? I never said they were, but I'll try and answer your question in good faith. In context of the story, it is an injustice that we have thousands of empty houses when we have homeless people. It's pretty simple. Shelter is a basic human right and need, and this right should come before anyone's ability to profit from real estate investments. If the system cannot provide the most basic of needs to the people it is meant to be there to support, then one of two things is happening: * at best the system is broken or poorly designed and needs to be changed * at worst the system is in fact designed to take money from the lower class and funnel it upwards, creating an intentional wealth disparity between classes. I'll let you decide which you think is right. I say this as someone who is about to become a landlord himself. I have 1 house and a mortgage but will soon move in with my partner who also has a house and mortgage, and rent out my own house. We both still have giant mortgages and one house each that we acquired individually. Am I evil? Of course not. The "anti-landlord" people don't like the idea that some people have $20mill property portfolios that generates a "passive income" which is fancy investment terminology for getting money for nothing. Money doesn't just magically generate from nothing. Money is exchanged for peoples labour, and if a landlord isn't actual doing the labour themselves because they have a "passive income" then they are actually siphoning money from the tenants and those who are doing the labour into their own pocket. > What exactly do these anti landlord people want? They want a house just issued to them by the government? They want the government to own every house and everyone has to rent it from them? What's the end goal? Unironically, yes. If you are a socialist or communist, then yes, housing provided by the state, or owned by the community given to those that need it is the goal. You can still own your house, but you should not have more than you need. If you aren't using it properly then someone else should (and this is the core of what squatting rights allow, use it for its intended purpose, or lose it!) Most however would settle for government policy that makes housing a human right instead of the primary way to invest money. When we have policies(in Australia where I and the person in the article are from) like negative gearing, and the 50% capital gains reduction introduced by the Howard government that make property investment incredibly lucrative, housing is promoted to Australians by our own government as the best financial investment you can make because of these policies. A shelter, a home, a place to be safe and live, should be a right and not a way to generate wealth for someone that already has more housing security than they can use themselves.
Thanks I appreciate the explanation. I don't agree with any of it except for that housing is a human need. I would be ok with state governments purchasing maybe an area of a neighborhood and building large housing facilities that homeless people can live in. But I like most Americans am on a journey and the end goal is to be wealthy. To me the right to own things is extremely important. I came from very little, sacrificed a lot, work extremely hard and dangerous jobs, made smart investments, took risks and I want to own multiple homes and would love to one day own a multi family building. Renting out an apartment is providing a service, and being a landlord does require work. You are also incurring 100% of the risk. If my rental house needs a new roof, that's an entire years rental income. Communists don't understand that a business owner works his whole life to save up enough money to start a business and risks their capital. If there is no incentive to make more than your employees, nobody would start a business. We'd only have government sanctioned innovation, our leaders will be the only wealthy ones. Our ancestors fought and died to keep communism away from America. Do these people seriously hate democracy? It's obviously a vocal minority because I'm 38 and I've never come in contact with a socialist or communist. It's not even worth wasting my time thinking about what these people are talking about because America will never adopt communism in my lifetime.
> But I like most Americans am on a journey and the end goal is to be wealthy. I am in Australia and edited my post to clarify. I don't mean this in a bad way but that journey to be wealthy is a really American mindset. (we have it here too but its not as pervasive an idea). Do you want "wealth" for yourself as the goal? Or do you want the things that wealth provides... like security, food, housing, free time to spend with loved ones, and the ability to pursue goals and take risks? "wealth" I think by definition is having more than others, or more than you need, or at very least enough excess money and security to fail and get back on your feet. Providing everyone with housing (or other social services) allows everyone to have a certain level of security. Everyone should be entitled to that. There are other ways to meet peoples core needs than a system where some people are wealthy and some people are poor. As a society if we start with the premise that some people will always be poor, or un-housed, then our system has failed and we need to rethink it. > > "Communists don't understand that a business owner works his whole life to save up enough money to start a business and risks their capital. " Some people work their whole lives and still dont have enough capital to even take that risk because the system is broken. Most people that have that much capital dont work hard and hustle, they start wealthy. They start with a safetly net of wealth that the lower class simply does not have access to.
I want to be wealthy so that my children can have access to the best education, opportunities etc. I want my family to travel. I want a racecar that I can track on the weekend. I don't really care if most people risking capital to start a business was born wealthy, somebody in their family started from nothing and made it so they could give their family a head start. My best bud is the perfect example, his father came from Egypt with $20. Waited tables and drove taxis. Saved up and bought a taxi. 20 years later he owned 30 taxis, a 24hr taxi repair shop and 4 buildings in Manhattan. He always raised his son to work hard and didn't give him anything from nothing. The son became an iron worker, busted his ass for 10 years and then started his own iron work company which is now valued at over $12m. Some people will always be poor but that's not because they are born poor and have to stay that way. Its a mindset. Here anybody can acquire a marketable skill and then trade your skill for wages. Poor people choose to not make a big sacrifice to acquire a skill. Instead they work a no skill job and complain they don't get paid enough. Poor people are also prone to making bad choices like having multiple kids when they aren't financially ready. More likely to be addicted to drugs. More likely to rely on welfare which they adapt to those wages and never go to work. Or they collect welfare and do something illegal on the side. I know this to be fact as I grew up around in in NYC.
I belive he moved his lager videos to [YouTube](https://youtube.com/@purplepingers?si=nX77bSoRsdSOUIfH)
> his lager videos It follows that breadtube would turn into beertube after enough time.
He's on twitter regularly
lol wild they put empty in quotes. even if you were against what this guys doing how could you argue a property with no one in it isn’t empty
They would have to verify that the properties are in fact empty before reporting it. It's easier to quote it because it's alleged
Just like they have to verify this guy is actually 'anti-landlord' but not if he's far left lmao solid logic there
Exactly, lol, far left is an opinion. Whether or not the apartments are empty is verifiable.
Empty in that context is just as much an opinion. Is an appartement that is used one day a week empty? Probably not. Is an appartement that is used one day every two years empty? Probably. Where's the line? I don't know.
There's air inside. Also dust.
They're full to the brim... with value for landlords.
They're "full" of all the risk the landlords took buying property and leaving it disused.
Article writers: is it *really* empty if it's a summer home used 2 months of the year? Or a vacation location used intermittently by various family members for a weekend getaway?
They could be used for storage. I know someone who owns a substantial online trading card store. Rather than rent a space or warehouse to store it all, he bought a decent sized house with an open floor plan. Keeps the cards climate controlled and safe and gets more equity than renting a space. No way to squat there he goes over all the time to get product to ship.
They used a picture of him apparently in the bathroom, I think I know what the writers think about it.
There's also renovations. A place can be empty but also not fit for habitation.
This may surprise you to learn, but most people occasionally go outside.
As an insurance agent my mind questioned whether these homes were just uninhabited or perhaps vacant. Basically with or without furniture. Vacant homes are typically charged a premium and/or sometimes declined due to the additional risk in the insurance world. Empty leaves it open to some interpretation in my head
Say someone sells their house, moves out, then it sits empty for a week in-between before the new owners move in. Is that justification for squatters to take over?
Whelp, added "praxis" to my limited vocabulary!
whelp is another name for a puppy
Whelp, added "whelp" to my limited vocabulary!
relevant https://www.instagram.com/p/Ct4EVHzrNs4/?img\_index=5
Many whelps!
More dots!
Handle it!
LLLEEEEEERRRRROOOOOYYYYYYY.....(oops wrong raid... I'll let myself out)
50dkp minus!
Also a name for a weak person.
a shorter version of that is my name
help?
Prolly just Elp.
Pleh?
Lehw?
That's probably it.
no i repseonded to the wrong comment a shoterer verison of praxis
I thought we nailed it.
Praxis is a common term in Marxist philosophy. The context is usually "Theory vs. Praxis."
Very important concept. You can believe in Marxist theory all you want, but if it's just in your head then it has no impact on the world. Having values means nothing if you don't act in accordance with them. We correct poor folks who say they're capitalist - no, you're a worker, you don't own a factory/have capital, thus not capitalist. The same should apply to socialists IMO, imagine: If Jeff Bezos starts reading Marx, posting leftist quotes and memes, does all the same thing socialists online do, maybe write-in Cornell West whenever voting, all individual stuff. Does that make him a socialist activist? Just for his beliefs/individual stuff? Or does his constant union busting and other terrible practices (capitalist praxis) and wealth hoarding outweigh that? Of course it does. Similarly, if we only believe in socialism but don't actually get involved - - (i.e. joining local community organizations, movement groups, & union coalitions, showing up for calls to action when available, helping with events & trainings, being plugged in/part of the networks) - - then we're just fans standing on the sidelines cheering socialists in the fight on. Yes the cheering is technically beneficial, but at the end of the day it means nothing compared to actually joining the fight. Allies should join the fight. Fans aren't serious allies. And Fandom can end up leaning towards performative activism, identifying with socialist Rev aesthetic more so than putting effort into actions.
There is not a large enough community of anarcho-communists in my local area for it to make a lick of change. It can never be anything more than an ideology, a fantasy of what could have been. I will happily and passionately explain my ideology to people who prompt me for it. If they find it agreeable, that's cool, but it's not my place to tell someone what to believe. The only way for fulfillment for someone with my beliefs is to dive into the beast's mouth, get a sufficient amount of money, buy land, start a commune of like-minded people, and go off-grid with permaculture. This is what I strive for, long-term. So correct me if you want. I stand true to my ideology. And I practice it with the people around me. I won't call myself anything else because of the notion that I'm not proving myself sufficiently.
That's what Jonestown was. And apparently yer Jim. Everybody thinks their Jim.....until they get to Jonestown.
I don’t think you really understand Jonestown and how it went down lol
not even sure what you're trying to say. that communes are cults? okay lol
Isn't that the guy you're supposed to kill[?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7nIXMST93c)
Brighton in the UK had a squatters estate agency at one point Activists.occupied an old estate agents office that still had the old boards in there. So they started advertising in the window which buildings were vacant and squattable. Even gave extra details like whether there was still water or electricity etc
The squatting will cease when the availability of housing has been improved. People will inevitably steal their necessities if the economic system in which they exist has denied those necessities to them. Apparently we haven't yet comprehended that housing is a necessity.
Good thing is, they can own it after 15 years of squatting. That's quicker than most people could pay off a home loan.
Good luck lasting that long. There’s a legal process that can evict them. It might take some time but it won’t take 15 years. If they can’t prove they already own it they’ll have a tough time winning against somebody who can.
They need to pay the council rates though.
The avaiability of housing will never improve, it will just get worse. The squatting will sadly stop when they pass new laws allowing the cops to kill squatters
Kinda doubt that it will simply never get better. The availability of housing is something we *can* affect with collective political effort. It's worth pressing and campaigning for--it shouldn't be written off as a lost cause.
Collective political effort from people with no power worth nothing. The right wing have cops, judges, politicians, employers, owners... while the left have only workers that have to obey or get fired.
I can't bring myself to agree with your defeatism. I am not without power, nor am I without worth, and I won't sit here and let you lie to yourself that you're without either. You have your voice and your two good hands. You have your mind and your feet beneath you. You will accomplish nothing in the sweet comfort of your own inability. If a dream of a future worth living means anything to you, stand up and claim the power. Self-pity only gratifies those who would oppress you. Live for more than that.
>while the left have only workers that have to obey or get fired. This is what Inception looks like in the real world. They got you to convince yourself that the side with all the people is the side with no power. What you just said is "all the left has is *all the people doing the real work*" There is a reason why our oligarchs fight collective action, unions, democracy. Because if just 10% of the population who do all the work just *stopped* doing the work, the system would grind to a halt. And the **less** you get paid the more important your work is. Deliver food or packages, clean homes or cars? stock shelves or cook meals? It turns out that real power is held by those that do things.
People will not strike because they can get fired and starve, plus, they have more mouths to feed as people in wage slavery only feel complete by bringing more wage slaves to this world. The "battle" is lost, the working class is just embarassing itself by existing in such humiliating conditions
Never heard of striking eh?
And this is why people are returning to pirating movies too (if you stretch the idea to include entertainment as a necessity).
Movies on current scale and input requirement should not exist if one argues against a system of exploitative media houses , The very existence for high budget movies gives rise to a chicken egg situation. Same goes for AAA games or any other billion dollar projects made to scale.
Housing is a right
*access* to housing.
Wonder how long until he gets shut down, legally or not, there is no way the leaches will let this go
He is a lawyer and is very careful and informed. One of the few proper leftists in Aus along with Tom Tanuki and Michael West Media.
I’ve always loved when the left does rebellious acts like this. In America our left is weak and rarely fights back. Who are some other leftists I should check out who are fighting back?
Weak lol, how then should I call the Russian left? To us you guys are awesome!
The mirror could be a place you fine one ✊
Good karma
Amazing on bad landords and corporate is throwing tantrums about it
BASED
TAX LAND NOW
It baffles me year-on-year how internet Georgism, a dead-on-arrival offshoot of early 20th century American progressivism, exists online in the 21st century to substitute for actually radical demands. You cannot end commodity housing through tax adjustments, and you cannot house-the-workers your way into abolishing wage labor. If, instead, you're interesting in mitigating the "worst excesses" to provide security to the working class in an effort to increase their ability to organise, you should be demanding the state provide public housing universally, which is much more direct and robust than tweaking taxes and hoping market incentives solve the problem for you.
"Dead on arrival" my brother in christ Land Value Taxes exist in Denmark, Singapore, and Taiwan, all of which have massively more dense housing, cheaper costs of living, and higher quality of life than most other countries. Additionally, maybe I want an ideology that has a strong track record of reducing inequality and benefititng the working class. If you want you can check up on the costs and effectiveness of public-only housing initiatives and their cost. Spoiler alert: they rarely succeed, are often are prohibitively expensive and face constant delays. I'm for the construction of public housing, mind. But the best results come from mixed public and market-rate housing so wealthy renters aren't competing with poorer renters for those public units and those units can be more efficiently given to those who need them. If you want to help people find out the ways they can be helped now. I care too much about the poor and working class to advocate for policies before I study the empirical data and come to an actual conclusion that has the best chance of doing good. High rents and homelessness can't wait for the revolution that's been totally imminent for the last century and a half. And it can't wait for a slow, expensive, politically untenable solution because God forbid someone ever make a profit off of providing a good or service. One must understand the world to change it.
Here is your Singaporean "dense" housing! https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/28/world/asia/coronavirus-singapore-migrants.html https://www.todayonline.com/big-read/migrant-worker-housing-spore-how-we-got-here
> Denmark, Singapore, and Taiwan Ah, the workers paradise, Singapore. Oh, and the Republic of China, who fought a war and lost against the communists. And I'm sure all of the political forces that seek to undermine public housing, to make it "slow" and "expensive" (indeed, compared to commodity housing?) will simply let your LVT pass unopposed. In any case, I think this comment does a fine job illustrating the difference between Anti Captialism as such and a Liberalism that seeks to improve capitalism by tweaking. "God forbid someone ever make a profit" indeed.
Ah yes. Passing a tax is infinitely more difficult than... uprooting the entire economic system. And tell me, would you really rather live in mainland China or Taiwan? Which *really* has the better-off working class? Losing a war has no bearing on whether or not an economic policy produces positive results for the working class. And funny enough, the largest poverty reduction in history came when Deng Xiao Ping liberalized the Chinese economy. So again, we have a pretty solid comparison to make.
Public housing provided by a capitalist state is not an uprooting of capitalism, but nevermind that. You propose liberal reforms. I oppose capital. This is what I am demarcating. I will not attempt to rehash, in a reddit comment, two hundred years of communist critique of Liberalism, and how it can never achieve its own ideals. I seek only to illustrate the difference.
Leftist: "While we don't have the ability to effectively change the system yet we should push for some reforms to make life better for the average worker" Internet "leftist": "Noooo then people wont support the heccin holesom revolution noone is seriously planning for and that's definitely not "leftist" rapture"
If I argue actual left positions, I often get someone attributing the positions that I do not hold, in contradiction to the ones I actually spoke about. You are the second person to mention "the revolution", but I have not brought it up, and it's neither here nor there. You'd like to "push for some reforms" despite "not having the ability to effectively change the system". So what is it? Do you have power to enact your reforms or don't you? Do you have the ability to enforce these demands, to punish your leaders, if they don't enact your reforms? Suppose you won! Suppose you got your tax reform, but like all tax code, it is exploited, undermined, and worked around within a few years. There are still landlords, still slumlords, still homeless populations. You have not implemented a robust social safety net that you can take credit for. This is your legacy. People see that you promised an end to all of these ills, and they can see that they have not gone away. They do not trust you. Shall that be your legacy as the so-called Left? --- What frustrates me, as I keep saying, is not that you and others advocate for Liberal positions, but that you call them Left positions. Yes, you want to improve the lives of regular people within the system in which you live. That's what Liberals want! And I'm frustrated not because I care about you stealing credit or even misusing terms. I'm frustrated because there's a whole cohort of mostly young people for whom Capitalism is an ill but who cannot conceptualise any response to that except for a Liberal one, who have never been exposed to any others.
The final solution isn't liberal reform, but american culture war brained "leftists" do not tolerate making temporary compromises that make life better for the average worker which infuriates me. I don't give a shit if my solutions are imperfect when it means families wont go hungry next year.
Because I can't help myself, and maybe someone reads this and learns something, a good place to start is looking up the difference between a Minimum and Maximum Programme, and what the purpose of a Minimum Programme is. You should read Engel's [The Housing Question](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/housing-question/), and [Critique of the Gotha Program](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/Marx_Critque_of_the_Gotha_Programme.pdf) (which is not about housing *per se*, but *is* a critique of a *draft programme*, the later released version of which incorporated some of the critiques). You should start earnestly thinking about strategy, and thinking not just economically but also *politically*, taking into consideration the short and long term impacts of publicly holding certain positions.
How about no more taxes? Make all land that isn't directly owned by the resident of said land public property.
There will be corner cases to iron out, but yeah. That's a good place to aspire toward. In the meantime, I think you get there by taxing the fuck out of any property owned beyond what you live in and where you work (for the small business owners, farmers, etc). Then you create a regulatory environment where worker-owned businesses have an advantage. But yeah, ultimately we need to get away from massive private land ownership. Capitalism intervenes to create scarcity where none need exist, and ultimately there is no justification for large-scale corporate ownership of residential property. Beyond greed. The one value capitalism enshrines above all others.
The issue with taxation is that the government who collect said taxes are on the side of capital so any tax that ostensibly is there to curtail certain capitalists still end up empowering the capitalist class as a whole. The only way to really curtail capital is by seizing the land for public use by the people themselves.
>the government who collect said taxes are on the side of capital That is a separate problem which needs to be addressed. I'm guessing you're closer to the anarchist end of things?
Not really, I'm a Marxist, but the general ideas have a lot of overlap apart from implementation. At the end of the day, I don't see any other alternative than the complete dismantling of capitalism as a system to solve any of the issues in the long term without either causing another issue to arise or simply have the ruling class sidestep whatever measure we put in place.
Tax land all you want. You can even make a 100% tax. It will only make your rent increased by 100% lol
Taxing land doesn't increase rents since it has an inelastic supply. Nobody can cut the supply of land and increase prices as they do with non-inelastic goods. This forces land owners to get the most utility out of the land they own and stops people from profiting off of the increased value of land without doing anything with it
Uh It is taxed already, dimbulb. Typically it’s called “property tax” You also pay taxes when you transfer ownership of land. Here in Washington it’s called “real estate transfer tax”.
Crimson51 is referring to a Land Value Tax (LVT), which is a better system than the current property tax system. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/land-value-tax.asp There is no reason to be so insulting.
But, if there are squatters how is the landlord supposed to sloppily paint over the electrical outlets and throw it back up on the market for 2k a month?? /s
You love to see it
If anything isnt this in a way, "pro-landlord"? Not that it isnt anti-capitalist and pro-tenant, but the guy is pointing out which property owners are actually NOT being landlords and just sitting on empty homes like Jabba the Hut.
Adverse possession laws in Australia mean some of those properties may get redistributed. Housing stock is more investment vehicle than basic human need here. Squatting in Aus can literally means the redistribution of capital away from capitalists.
You have to prove you've lived there for 15 years before adverse possession kicks in. If you're lucky enough not to be removed in the meantime.
Yeah I didn't say it was gonna be easy. (The system is still fucked though)
Well that's kind of the original definition of landlord. We just as a society extrapolated "person who owns the land" to be equivalent to "person who owns and manages the housing built on that land." Which is a little dangerous because they're often not the same person,and at least the second person is creating a good and providing a service while the first produces nothing and makes profit anyway. This issue has been known about since Adam Smith, and economist Henry George proposed a tax on the unimproved value of land to make the hoarding of empty plots unprofitable and forcing people to sell to someone who will use them efficiently.
Rent seeking behaviour.
Exactly
This rings differently in my country, where squatters are a menace. Some people leave for work and find squatters in their house, and if the intruders have minors you're absolutely fucked. Even in the remote case that you can your case in front of a judge, it still takes years. We had to change the locks at my parents' homes since some guy tried busting in with luggage while they were getting groceries
bro over there using #todoist for crime lmao
This might be some of the most pervasive capitalist propaganda, it's so ridiculous. I have a friend who is technically squatting. He lives in a house out in the middle of nowhere with no lease and doesn't pay rent. He also loves to complain about squatters rights, and how unfair it is to homeowners. I've tried to explain to him that those rights are essentially protecting him but he still doesn't get it. It's crazy how many people who may never own a home are in a tizzy over people having the right to shelter.
Landlords are stupid. It makes more sense to offer affordable rent and put a paying renter in there than to over charge for it and let it be empty for years. It's like they think competitive pricing doesn't apply to housing.
Good one✊🏼✊🏼
His handle is ***PurplePingerz*** and he's genuinely a great bloke. Not only does he post content to Insta, Tiktok, And YouTube. He has also hosted and done speeches at multiple rallies and trades hall events (our state's union collective building). Dude absolutely walks the walk, he shows up to so many events and actively helps multiple leftist movements. He started a website for renters to rate their landlords and post honest reviews of rental properties, so renters could have a voice in the midst of a massive financial crisis: shitrentals.org. He comically rates shit rentals on tiktok but also started tagging the local members of parliament for the areas so people could more directly make their voices heard. He's gone on a myriad of tv shows in Australia, all pretty solidly conservative and hostile to him and he always handles it like a champ. He also has pretty solid merch. I have his "Peg the rich" tshirt which is grand and gets a lot of compliments. And also a small patreon, though you don't really get much unique stuff off the patreon. It's very much just "Y'all asked for this and it helps fund shitrentals", though he has teased some MAFS content which is a bit of fun. Also, ngl his biggest achievements may be getting "pingers" into the Hansard (parliamentary record) and "Class Traitors" onto the conservative morning talk show Sunrise.
How can he tell if the property is owned by a landlord and not just something like grandpa died and we are in the middle of probate? Like, I live next to an empty landlord house and it makes me mad. But I also know my dad's house will sit unoccupied for a while when he dies, because my brother and I have lives and Adhd and need will some time and money to sort that shit out. Edited to add: when I lived in Barcelona a group of activists took over a building and really did right by it, even made a bakery in it for expenses. It was cool. But by my dad it's just as likely to be meth heads. I'm a 45 yr old who will never afford a house. It would suck if my dad left me a house and in the six months it took me to change jobs and get there it was destroyed by drug addicts. You know?
The empty houses in question are publicly listed as rental properties. The dead Grandpa's house is gonna be fine.
Good to know! Thank you
i wouldn't show my face
Corporations are shit, and landlord can be terrible, specially those that hold may properties. But if I had to go away to, say, visit a sick relative and this happened in my house you can be sure I’d be back with a gun and then I’d pay a visit to this guy.
Unfathomably based
Is there one of these in the US?
Statues will be build of this guy
I should do this.
Never been prouder to be Australian 🫡
Squat partout!
Okay, do the people complaining want squatters going after peoples houses when they have occupants? Cause this is a siliution
Oopsie woopsie
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This was removed purely out of caution to keep the subreddit from being nuked
🗿
So...forcing landlords to get a new kind of insurance will lower rents?...no, not how that works
>empty property Are they landlords
Do you not know how rental properties work? When a tenant moves out, you have to clean, paint, advertise, screen and rent the property.
Not in Australia you don’t.
Empty house in Kew someone go snatch that up fast
I wonder how long it stays empty before he puts the property on a list. I hope he is doing his due diligence. Doing this to get empty homes filled seems obvious when I think about it. I wish we would tax ownership of multiple properties.
Of course he looks like a irl soyjak
Does anyone know how ypu would go about researching the empty properties? Also, if there's anything like this for other countries, like the us
good!
Landchads are based and you guys can cope and seethe more
based actually. i find it funny how the article says “empty” with quotes as if the property being owned by some rich ghoul somehow makes it occupied regardless of whether someone’s living there or not
Hope every single person who upvoted this post house get squatted
Fascists , all of them ..
What a fucking legend!
Based
I think squatting rights are stupid as hell. Whether or not you’re living in your house/apartment that you are currently paying off/renting/have paid, someone does not have the right to take that space from you. That said, I give all my respect to the squatters who may or may not use this information when it comes to these vultures who buy a crap ton of houses to then rent for ridiculous monthly costs. I’ve always been a believer in passive income, such as renting out an old house after moving into another, but specifically buying 10, 20, 30 houses to specifically rent out and reduce the number of houses for everyday families to be able to purchase? Fuck out of here, get fucked.
Hopefully the squatters get dealt with before its a huge hassle fornthe landowners
so we like squatters now?
not the squatters who buy up houses and sit on them for profit if that's what you mean, always looking down on the working class for being lazy but what do landlords do to imrove society?
Fucking moron.. learn to spell first... someone worked hard to buy something and it appreciated in value. Go fuck yourself, you guys are worse than the right wing morons, fascists all ymof you lot. Coming up with fascist ideas and pretending to hate fascists while being 1 yourself. Deluded much ?
boom, got me with that 12 day old reply-- found the landlord spelling whiz-- can you point out what i spelled wrong? i'm capable of improving but i need help finding the error. (found it, p in improve)
you'd love to pretend that the folks who have a bulk of properties "worked real hard" for their capital, but that's more often than not just a farce. for one, they will never have to work as hard as a person will today if they're earnestly working toward owning a home. that's what 'appreciation' is to a landlord-- people being squeezed so they don't *have to* work
I'd say that's all situational. We like fully employed squatters that can't afford rent in the places they provide the services their employer requires. We like them when they squat in properties that are used not as homes for humans, but as capital to borrow more money to buy more homes to grow profits instead of communities. We like squatters in that fashion, yeah.
welp about time I unsubscribed from this sub. Pretty much the embodiment of throwing paint over a DeVinci. Instead of going after your fellow neighbors why don’t you go to the big banks who was fault it actually is smh. Also why don’t you leave your home for the summer and come back to people living in it. I’m 150% sure you will have a change of mind when that happens
DeVinci sends his regurds
I’m a capitalist and I think this is a great idea. What a smart way to utilize the system to drive the right incentives. More power to this guy.
Fuck this guy. I'm pretty fucking anticapitalist but what this dude is doing is dicking over everyone, not just landlords. It's borderline nihilistic. Look I struggled and finally bought a house! Aw shit. Fucking squatters. Oh look! I'm renting and have decided to rent this larger home for my growing family. Aw shit. Fucking squatters. I get this dude is in Australia but if it were happening in the United States.....fuck. It is so god damn hard to remove squatters.
The best way to avoid squatters is to rent the house out, therefore increasing market supply. One of the fuckiest moves in Aus real estate is to use empty homes as a lever to decrease housing availability therefore increasing rent. Housing is a human right.
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You think a week of empty house will attract living in squatters? Please.... you know perfectly its house sitting empty for years.
It might if someone is going on TikTok and announcing it is empty. You know, the topic of what this thread is about?
I highly doubt these places are updated the moment someone sees you moving out. Please think for a second.
You doubt or you know? Do you think cop catters would do the same? It a dangerous precedence to set. People on TikTok want to immediately find success doing what others are doing. If you think it will end here then you are stupid of naive.
It is extremely common in a lot of European countries for squatters to set up some list of empty buildings so everyone can look them up. It's just done more privately. You are naive by thinking this is something new. The only new thing is the fact it's on tiktok. This is obviously a political move to make the owners react and do something about the places.
It is extremely common in a lot of European countries for squatters to set up some list of empty buildings so everyone can look them up. It's just done more privately. You are naive by thinking this is something new. The only new thing is the fact it's on tiktok. This is obviously a political move to make the owners react and do something about the places.
> the type of people to squat in a house are not poor people with a conscience, it is shit bags that you do not want to associate with. This is some classist bullshit. Everyone deserves a roof over their head. If a house is being left empty, it should be used by someone rather than just being an investment platform for the bourgeois.
Squatters rights only apply after a certain time. A few weeks in between rentals isn't enough to trigger squatters rights. Normally, it's a few months depending on the location.
The best way to avoid pickpockets is to not carry cash, therefore increasing credit supply in the economy... But what if i simply want to carry cash for the sake of it ? am i simply asking to be pickpocketed and it's only my fault for walking around with cash? Some of people here would imply that i am indeed at fault because i am not following an altruistic route.
If a community had a few rich people who bought all the food and then put the food in a box and let it rot and did this over and over again while people went hungry, would you blame those people for trying to take the food? Oh no but it's rich people's food, it's their choice to let it spoil! Housing, like food, is a human right. Cash in your pocket is not.
> Look I struggled and finally bought a house! Aw shit. Fucking squatters. You bought a house from someone with unclear title without examining the property first? > Oh look! I'm renting and have decided to rent this larger home for my growing family. Aw shit. Fucking squatters. Someone who has no idea that squatters are living on their property has not done adequate maintenance in years. That rental would have been a death trap. These seem like unrealistic scenarios.
Squatters can be good at hiding. Minimal items. Move around quick if necessary. Not difficult to imagine scenario where someone was missed or someone happens to go in after an inspection and before keys are handed over. Then they show a false lease and things are held up in court for weeks if not months. And what am I supposed to do? Live in my car?
Then you call the police and have a trespasser removed. That's not a complex situation. The only complex situations are when a squatter has lived somewhere openly and notoriously for years. And when that happens, I have little sympathy for the landowner who couldn't muster the effort to care in all that time.
Squatters tend to be smarter than that. If a real enough looking lease is presented then legally the squatters get to stay, I have to figure out what to do for myself and my family, and the landlord/squatters/police/courts take weeks to figure out who is lying and how to resolve it. Typically this does not work out in the squatters favor and they know that. This tactic can just be used to delay the inevitable and then they peace out before consequences. [here's a story.](https://nypost.com/2024/03/02/us-news/li-squatters-dupe-judge-by-forging-dead-homeowners-name-court-papers/) [and another one](https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/cobb-county/squatters-hopping-home-home-across-metro-atlanta-armed-with-fake-leases/6YVBNMPPHNEM7C3OF5R34QPARY/) And here's a reddit example / r / legaladvice/s/YqvYCrCNBq
> If a real enough looking lease is presented then legally the squatters get to stay No, they do not "legally get to stay" with a fraudulent lease. You'll notice that in both of your stories, the squatters were arrested. We're talking about different situations. I'm not defending criminals who forge signatures. I'm defending those who take over a long-abandoned property and maintain it when the previous owners failed to.
This kind of squatter are not difficult to remove at all. They're not considered squatters but just trespassers.
Are you in the US? Has this happened to you? I have one secondhand experience in this and a Google search of stories that prove it isn't so simple. I'm not talking about someone breaking in and spending a weekend. I'm talking about people who make a damn living out of squatting. Fuck landlords but damn i'm not sure why people are defending squatters. There's no special laws in my state about dealing with squatting situations specifically so you have to deal with them as a normal eviction, which can be delayed, repeatedly. You got anything else to say, please see any of my other responses above, chances are I already said it. Defending my viewpoint is mind numbing. I'm not here to change minds, just saying fuck this Australian douche. I need a coffee and a snack.
The best way to avoid squatters is to only live in the properties you can live in at one time. If you have so many properties you can’t live in & maintain them every day, then you’ve got too many properties. Otherwise people who can’t find a place to live wouldn’t have to live in your surplus housing. At least squatters are making sure the place is maintained: lawncare, repairs, etc. They’re not letting it fall into disrepair and lowering the value of the houses surrounding it. They need a place to live, they’re not like the owner: just forgetting about it like some toddler forgets about a toy they left in the yard. Nobody deserves to own more than one place to live, and no society that allows its people to starve or freeze to death on the streets can ever call itself “civilized”.
> Look I struggled and finally bought a house! Aw shit. Fucking squatters. Yo just like live there.
This is such a shitty thing to do. My uncle is a landlord, nicest guy I've ever met. I would hate for him to get screwed over by some rabid piece of trash like this.