• Rose@piefed.social
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    20 hours ago

    I keep thinking of one of the old videos I saw.

    “…I dunno, maybe we should get rid of all of the landlords!”

    “But who would we then pay rent to?”

    I was, like, holy shit, things are so much more complicated than I even realised, everything is based on some dumb suppositions or some shit.

    • neatchee@piefed.social
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      6 hours ago

      Not that I’m a proponent of capitalism as the default economic model (I’m very much not) but I dislike this particular argument because it misrepresent the function of capital.

      Large projects require upfront investment that is beyond the means of individuals or even groups of individuals (e.g. 100 prospective tenants cannot afford to build and office building; you need someone able to front the equivalent of X years rental costs), and those investments need to be managed by specialists. Whether those specialists are independent or employed by a central governing body, you still need capital and you still need effective oversight to prevent corruption and exploitation.

      What we need are guaranteed public offerings, with a rising baseline over time, that leave opportunity for capital investment in luxury upgrades. The guaranteed public offerings prevent gross exploitation by the capitalists, and the capital investments provide the innovation pressure and luxury offerings that incentivize those inclined to seek said luxuries without exploiting the public offering system to do it.