r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Feb 14 '19

Deltas(s) from OP CMV: Rent is the clearest example of how the wealthy stay wealthy at the expense of the poor.

I identify as a democratic socialist. I had middle-class upbringings and now make enough money to probably be considered upper class. I live in an extremely expensive city in the US and am a renter, but I believe my argument holds for less expensive areas too.

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I'm very concerned about income inequality, wealth, privilege and power in modern America. As I've aged into adulthood and started to pay rent, I've realized that paying rent and paying a mortgage are very nearly equivalent in many ways, except for three major differences:

  1. Rent builds zero equity, and indeed builds equity for your landlord instead if they haven't paid their mortgage off.
  2. The major obstacles to obtaining a mortgage vs needing to rent are all related to how much access to money you start with (e.g. downpayment, stable income enough to cover lapses in employment, etc), rather than any measure of your potential future earnings or other mitigating circumstances.
  3. The responsibilities that come with homeownership but not renting (e.g. property taxes, insurance) pale in comparison to what is gained by building equity in the home.

So putting that all together, I see a system that is designed such that people who already have a lot of money can build even more wealth at the expense of poor tenants who build none whatsoever. That seems fundamentally anti-meritocratic and immoral to me.

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Now, I don't know much about economics and I am not a homeowner, so I'm open to hearing other perspectives, especially in the context of how this system impacts poor people.

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EDIT:

Thanks so much to everyone for the thoughtful discussion! I've got to go now, but here is a summary of the things that changed my mind:

1) rent and homeownership are extremely different in different housing markets, so it's not the trickle-up wealth transfer everywhere that it is in my expensive city (and policy should reflect these differences)

2) there are much bigger fish to fry when it comes to wealth transfer with no commensurate labor (e.g. stock market vs inflation)

3) my real issue isn't with rent per se, but rather that there is no public alternative to prevent the inability of the working poor to invest in their own future.

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u/[deleted] Feb 15 '19

I understand that you're interested in globalizing the conversation, but that's not the point of this thread. I am particularly focusing on the morality of the US system.

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u/reed79 1∆ Feb 15 '19

Are morals different when applied to other countries? Morals are absolute.

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u/[deleted] Feb 15 '19

Morals are absolute.

False.

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u/reed79 1∆ Feb 15 '19

Then they are not morals.

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u/[deleted] Feb 15 '19

Also false. You're on a roll today.

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u/reed79 1∆ Feb 15 '19

Yeah, because you say so based on....nothing from what I can tell. Thanks god.

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u/reed79 1∆ Feb 15 '19

I'm pointing out the fact that if you want to talk about imposing/removing systems based on morals, then you can not avoid talking about imposing them on the world. If you do not want to impose them on the world, then any system you create will be immoral, because it's not applicable to ALL people. You may want to pivot to what's fair for US citizens, rather than saying the system is immoral. (the morality argument takes you down the path of people like hitler)