If rent only went toward covering building maintenance and wasn’t a way for landlords to generate profits from their “investment,” we’d all be paying a hell of a lot less (esp in high-demand cities where rents rise w/o corresponding improvements in building quality)
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In a slightly better world, we’d only have to cover the costs of maintenance and utilities, but so long as housing is sold for profit and humans need to live somewhere, landlords have no incentive *not* to suck us dry
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Replying to @drooliet
the costs of maintenance + utilities in their own right, but also the costs of providing for the maintainers + utility workers--what I'm getting at is that no matter how utopian the society, people in it will need to work and pay for their housing
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Replying to @380kmh
firetrucks and streetlamps also cost $ to maintain, but we’ve decided that those are important enough to warrant public funding. Why should housing be any different?
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Replying to @drooliet
A tiny fraction of inhabited streets actually have streetlamps; emergency services are a situation where we rarely actually need them, but need them to be in excellent working order when we DO need them. I argue medical care falls into same category--but not housing or food...
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...because housing and food we need *all the time,* and we can handle a wide range in quality, price, and selection, according to our taste and means. For people who struggle with these "all the time" expenses, we DO allocate public funding--but we could do a better job of it.
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This isn’t really the important question. What matters is whether or not we should *aspire* to providing these things, or if we want our society to be one in which it’s possible to be homeless or to starve.
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every society *starts* as one in which it's possible to be homeless or starve and so far I'm not aware of many which have entirely escaped that situation--maybe they just didn't aspire hard enough though
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That’s not quite what I’m talking about. I apologize if this is derailing the convo, but again, the fact that a problem hasn’t been solved yet isn’t really relevant to whether or not you want to do it.
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right--but the fact that people really want to solve a problem isn't always relevant to the problem actually being soluble
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To be clear I am NOT trying to say this. That would be terrible.
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