this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2026
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That landlord was equally a victim of the system paying inflated prices to develop the property requiring perpetually higher rents.
If the capital required to build the apartments wasn’t heavily levered then they also participated in financial exploitation elsewhere either direct or indirect
I would personally argue that any wealthy individual under capitalism is only able to be wealthy on the basis of exploitation. In my view labor creates value, so no matter how far you have to go back you will always find rampant exploitation of labor when you see a wealthy individual or family.
This is plain to see when you critically think about this idea of development of land into housing for landlords to rent out. The landlord (wealthy individual due to exploitation of labor) buys land, hires people to do labor on it (exploitation), which creates value that's added to said land.
I would also disagree on the idea that landlords are in any way victims of this system, they are more like the benefactors of it, as the system as a whole is set up to benefit their class and is much easier on them. They pay less taxes in a lot of regions, they don't have to sell their labor power to eat, they can always get favored treatment with banks and financial institutions, and, at least where I live, they can send lobbyists to local, state, and federal governing bodies to advocate for their interests with money (bribery).
I did state that if the capital required for the development wasn’t levered (borrowed from financial institution) then they obtained their capital through exploitation directly or otherwise.
Your argument about landlords being benefactors is compelling but landlords come in many different scales. From do well tradesmen who possess the skills to develop a property leveraging their own skilled labour and knowledge to offer the rental service to multinational reits that buy up property en masse and are the evil you speak of lol.
The system is flawed. We know capitalism funnels money upward your argument is valid but ignores that some individual / independent landlords are still people who may well be exploited every other step along the way.
You're right, maybe I should've been less argumentative in my comment, my apologies about that.
You make a good point. I'll cede my argument that every single landlord got the starting capital from the exploitation of others, because there are exceptions in every circumstance.
I do also think that there's another elephant in the room which is that landlordism in general boils down to holding a basic need hostage and charging more than it's worth to people who don't have the entire value at once. In my eyes this is simply being a parasite, and I also get worked up about all of this, so I'm sorry if I came off as argumentative or hostile in my comment.
Our financial system that lets landlords use their highly leveraged assets cash flows as a business plan to purchase more properties and use the same model is the primary problem when all you need to do is show up at the bank and say I’m going to make this many units they’re going to generate this much cash flow which I will use to pay you 😅 bank says okay here’s your huge mortgage.
I agree our capitalist society is corrupt at its core and rots further every day ❤️🩹 we should do much more for the least fortunate among us!