<story><title>American Trailer Parks: The owners are getting rich</title><url>http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/may/03/owning-trailer-parks-mobile-home-university-investment</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>methodover</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m so torn on this.&lt;p&gt;So, if I understand this correctly, this is how to get rich off renting to poor people: (1) Buy out a property where a bunch of poor people live, (2) Jack the rent up, (3) Justify it with superficial renovations.&lt;p&gt;It works because (1) the cost of moving is so high, and (2) all the other property owners are doing the same thing -- In fact, that&amp;#x27;s probably why they&amp;#x27;re doing this &amp;quot;university&amp;quot; to begin with.&lt;p&gt;On the one hand, this looks totally immoral. Poor people are forced to move out, or become even more impoverished, as a result of what you&amp;#x27;re doing. And it seems like the renovations are really just superficial -- they&amp;#x27;re designed to make people think &amp;quot;Oh, well they&amp;#x27;re doing renovations, so the property is worth more.&amp;quot; Rather than a genuine, good-faith attempt at improving the properties in a way that the poor tenants can afford.&lt;p&gt;But on the other hand, this is capitalism. Oftentimes in capitalism, things look really, really bad. But from a macro point of view, things work out better in the long run. Could there be some kind of better long-term effect that I just can&amp;#x27;t see?&lt;p&gt;And yet, criticisms aside, I don&amp;#x27;t know if any municipality in the country has figured out a good solution from the regulation side of things. In fact, I&amp;#x27;m skeptical if regulation can solve this problem. It feels like greedy slumlords are just going to be greedy slumlords no matter what rules we put into place. Maybe the real solution is to just, like, persuade greedy slumlords to think of tenants as real, living, breathing human beings instead of cattle.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>panarky</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;Oftentimes in capitalism, things look really, really bad. But from a macro point of view, things work out better in the long run.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;There is no evidence that things deterministically &amp;quot;work out better in the long run&amp;quot; in an unregulated capitalist system. This is just an unexamined belief that prevents us from taking action against injustice in the short run.&lt;p&gt;Note that things are also working out pretty well under market socialism (the Nordic model), and under state capitalism (Singapore, China).&lt;p&gt;This unfounded belief that it always works out for the best &amp;quot;in the long run&amp;quot; is very similar to the belief that life on Earth may be full of pain, injustice and misery, but &amp;quot;in the long run&amp;quot; it will all be great in heaven.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s a powerful way to keep people from taking action to improve their circumstances right now.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is past the ocean is flat again.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikiquote.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;John_Maynard_Keynes&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikiquote.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;John_Maynard_Keynes&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>American Trailer Parks: The owners are getting rich</title><url>http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/may/03/owning-trailer-parks-mobile-home-university-investment</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>methodover</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m so torn on this.&lt;p&gt;So, if I understand this correctly, this is how to get rich off renting to poor people: (1) Buy out a property where a bunch of poor people live, (2) Jack the rent up, (3) Justify it with superficial renovations.&lt;p&gt;It works because (1) the cost of moving is so high, and (2) all the other property owners are doing the same thing -- In fact, that&amp;#x27;s probably why they&amp;#x27;re doing this &amp;quot;university&amp;quot; to begin with.&lt;p&gt;On the one hand, this looks totally immoral. Poor people are forced to move out, or become even more impoverished, as a result of what you&amp;#x27;re doing. And it seems like the renovations are really just superficial -- they&amp;#x27;re designed to make people think &amp;quot;Oh, well they&amp;#x27;re doing renovations, so the property is worth more.&amp;quot; Rather than a genuine, good-faith attempt at improving the properties in a way that the poor tenants can afford.&lt;p&gt;But on the other hand, this is capitalism. Oftentimes in capitalism, things look really, really bad. But from a macro point of view, things work out better in the long run. Could there be some kind of better long-term effect that I just can&amp;#x27;t see?&lt;p&gt;And yet, criticisms aside, I don&amp;#x27;t know if any municipality in the country has figured out a good solution from the regulation side of things. In fact, I&amp;#x27;m skeptical if regulation can solve this problem. It feels like greedy slumlords are just going to be greedy slumlords no matter what rules we put into place. Maybe the real solution is to just, like, persuade greedy slumlords to think of tenants as real, living, breathing human beings instead of cattle.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>EliRivers</author><text>&lt;i&gt;But on the other hand, this is capitalism.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Is it? Capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production. Is somewhere to live a &amp;quot;means of production&amp;quot;? Sure, it&amp;#x27;s necessary to live, but it&amp;#x27;s not &amp;quot;producing&amp;quot; anything. There&amp;#x27;s no partnership involved. Capitalism is about someone owning the &amp;quot;machine&amp;quot; [1] of production, and someone else being employed to operate that machine, and the owner and operator splitting the profit. In theory, the two of them working together in this way produces more than either would on their own, so everyone benefits.&lt;p&gt;I see the sort of thing in this article referred to as &amp;quot;rentier capitalism&amp;quot;, although it&amp;#x27;s generally meant to be derogatory; a way of marking it out from the beneficial form of capitalism.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Oftentimes in capitalism, things look really, really bad. But from a macro point of view, things work out better in the long run.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I think you&amp;#x27;re confusing capitalism with exploitation and rent seeking. They&amp;#x27;re not the same thing. Not at all.&lt;p&gt;As an aside, I&amp;#x27;m sure this use of the word &amp;quot;capitalism&amp;quot; is something Chomsky used to talk about. Now that it&amp;#x27;s very broadly accepted that capitalism is ethically good and correct and there is effectively no discussion about capitalism, people can gradually move bad behaviour into the definition of capitalism and society will protect that bad behaviour, even against its own interests.&lt;p&gt;If we do want to redefine &amp;quot;capitalism&amp;quot;, that&amp;#x27;s fine, of course, but at that point we have to re-examine its status as &amp;quot;ethically good&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;correct&amp;quot;, and judge it in light of this rent-seeking exploitation that produces no value or wealth. In my verdict, under this new definition, &amp;quot;capitalism&amp;quot; comes up bad.&lt;p&gt;[1] Which of course could be an actual machine, but could be just any form of capital that is necessary to produce the output goods.</text></comment>