This reminds of a statement I saw awhile back.
"You can't be trusted to eat the rich, because what will happen is you'll eat a bunch of doctors and lawyers [including, e.g., public defenders] while the actual rich laugh"
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Hrefna (DHC) (hrefna@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 04-Nov-2024 13:46:42 JST 
Hrefna (DHC)
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Hrefna (DHC) (hrefna@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 04-Nov-2024 15:14:20 JST
Hrefna (DHC)
I literally live on a ranch property. I keep horses. My neighbors on one side raise cattle. The other side previously bred paso finos. Three doors down they grow crops, a mile and a half away there's a CSA.
Yes. I know farmers.
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Lewis Cowles (lewiscowles1986@phpc.social)'s status on Monday, 04-Nov-2024 15:14:21 JST 
Lewis Cowles
@hrefna @Azuaron @aredridel
I love this. Folks renting rooms are not in the same vein as doctors and lawyers though. They haven't mastered any skills past having one too many rooms.I Guess a real-life version could be what happened to farmers in a few revolutions.
So I ask if you know any farmers? I do, hard working, clever. Maybe not cash rich, but definitely not asset poor, and usually, the job has been in the family for generations.
Oh, they tend to rent out whole buildings, not rooms
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Hrefna (DHC) (hrefna@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 04-Nov-2024 17:45:05 JST
Hrefna (DHC)
There's also a world of difference between landlord (not a job) and property manager (a job classically involving a lot of logistics and emotional labor), but sometimes—not always, but often in these "renting out a bedroom" cases—those _are_ the same person.
It's easy to make sweeping statements about complex situations, it's a lot harder to actually navigate them inside of the capitalist dystopia when everyone is trying to get by.
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Peter Toft Jølving (joelving@mastodon.joelving.dk)'s status on Monday, 04-Nov-2024 17:45:07 JST 
Peter Toft Jølving
@lewiscowles1986 @hrefna @Azuaron @aredridel but OPs specific case is not all that clear cut. Is that person "hoarding" living space for profit? Maybe in principle, but in practice it feels much more murky. And definitely not the first place to spent your effort, when we have giant corporations owning so much property.
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Peter Toft Jølving (joelving@mastodon.joelving.dk)'s status on Monday, 04-Nov-2024 17:45:08 JST
Peter Toft Jølving
@lewiscowles1986 @hrefna @Azuaron @aredridel landlords are fundamentally capatalist. Their ability to perform that role derives from property right (capital, and thus covered under OPs definition).
Their harm is a matter of scale, and while someone renting out their single spare unit is not what's creating the housing crisis, the decision to keep the property under ownership and rent it out is still hoarding living space for profit, driving up prices.
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Hrefna (DHC) (hrefna@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 04-Nov-2024 17:49:04 JST
Hrefna (DHC)
But every. single. time. the discussion turns to "but renting out a bedroom is evil" or "but if you can't afford to live without a roommate you should sell!" it only serves to support the people who are _actually hoarding property_.
Because no matter how "wrong" that may be (or not), it is not on the same _planet_ of impact as the Blackstones and Greystones of the world.
At best the argument is value neutral.
No exceptions.
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Hrefna (DHC) (hrefna@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 05-Nov-2024 05:31:11 JST
Hrefna (DHC)
This is quite possibly the most bizarre framing I've seen on this question.
What percentage of homeowners do you think _inherited_ a house?
Do you also extend this to food? The person who sells the vegetables from their back yard causing the same "harm" as a corporate farm?
What even.
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Lewis Cowles (lewiscowles1986@phpc.social)'s status on Tuesday, 05-Nov-2024 05:31:12 JST
Lewis Cowles
@Flux @hrefna @Azuaron @aredridel
For me it's not about the harmer, but the harmed.
If you inheritted a house, and then rented it to your child, I think it would meet your standard and mine.
If you were already paying your mortgage, or rent, but then bring in another so you have "a little extra", or "enough to get by"; I think the harmed doesn't change one bit.
Of course not everyone considers themselves harmed. :shrugs:
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Paul Lalonde (flux@wandering.shop)'s status on Tuesday, 05-Nov-2024 05:31:17 JST 
Paul Lalonde
@hrefna @Azuaron @lewiscowles1986 @aredridel If the poor had any idea how much the rich had...
When a rich person buys an asset without a loan they are just rearranging their balance sheet, not juggling their lifestyle. And yet that rearrangement winds up with them having the rents they can charge for the use of that asset.
For me that's the line: do you get to rearrange your balance sheet to extract rents at no cost or risk to your ability to have all your needs met. -
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Hrefna (DHC) (hrefna@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 05-Nov-2024 05:33:53 JST
Hrefna (DHC)
Every power analysis starts with questions of scale and the institutional power at play, not the experience of individuals. An individual may experience bigotry for being a male, but that's not the same as _misandry_ (as opposed to misogyny, which is systemic and structural).
An individual may experience bigotry for being white, but in the US you won't experience _racism_ for being white.
Because institutional power changes the nature of bigotry
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Hrefna (DHC) (hrefna@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 05-Nov-2024 05:37:06 JST
Hrefna (DHC)
Even to the degree I agree that the dynamics are different for an "inherited" house (which I don't particularly, though it changes some of the individual morality involved, houses are still expensive, costs on them are highly variable, and there's a lot that goes into living together) it is not even in the same reality of harm as what happens with capital's involvement.
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