• Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          It’s just as “totalitarian” either way. It’s esentially the same system without the surplus being taken out of your pocket.

          In a landlord system:

          • You pay $2000 a month. Of that, $1500 goes towards mortgage. Another $200 goes to maintenance, utilities, etc. The landlord pockets $300 for himself.

          • You have no choice but to rent from a landlord, buy housing yourself, or be homeless

          • Eventually the landlord pays off the mortgage, and pockets the additional $1500 for themselves because it’s “market rate”. Your rent remains at $2000/month.

          • The landlord dictates the rules of the building. You cannot get rid of a tyrant landlord except for moving, which isn’t free, easy, or time convenient

          In a co-op:

          • You pay $1000 a month. Of that, $800 goes towards mortgage, far less because it is no longer a speculative investment. The remaining $200 goes to maintenance, utilities, etc. There is no landlord, the collective collectively owns the housing. Nobody pockets any money for themselves.

          • You have no choice but to rent from a co-op, buy housing yourself, or be homeless

          • Eventually the co-op pays off the mortgage and your rent then drops to $200/month.

          • You vote for who is the manager/council of the building(s), which is almost always a tenant themselves. It’s generally not a full time job usually single digit hours, and they are compensated. If the manager/council become tyrannical, you vote them out.

          You have a clearly better system available, both in terms of your freedom and your wallet. And the better option isn’t the landlord. They’re all too happy to use your paycheck to buy another yacht or private jet.

          And this isn’t fantasy, non-market co-ops do exist. Look at the above link about Pittsburgh.

                • Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world
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                  2 months ago

                  While possible, there is no way to be certain. Corporate interests like these don’t get perpetuated solely by the owning class. It requires swaths of the working class to have stockholm syndrome. So until it devolves into insults, generally I try to give people the benefit of the doubt.

                  Botting on the other hand is a different story.

                • Patapon Enjoyer@lemmy.world
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                  2 months ago

                  Don’t attribute to malice what is adequately explained by ignorance. Owners have had centuries of propaganda to fool people that they actually do anything.

                • Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world
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                  2 months ago

                  It is bizarre that you think that housing is used as a “speculative” investment.

                  No it’s not.

                  https://create.umn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Real-Estate-Speculation.pdf

                  people simply need a place where they can store wealth without having it destroyed

                  That’s what banks are for.

                  If people could use money to store their wealth housing would be demonetized and prices would go down, then your coop model could naturally outcompete renting if it truly is superior. Fix the money, fix the world.

                  This is a load of nonsense. People already use money to store their wealth.

                  Coops haven’t taken off because it is in the financial interest of the owning class to maintain the status quo. They do everything in their power to buy up every property they can, and to influence the law to keep their business in power.

                  The problem is systematic, it requires a fundamental change to the structure of our economy.