Not sure if this is just ingrained “American Dream” mentality but I want to get away from landlords and buy my own house. Partly this is so I can have my own space to work on my own projects, be messy, grow weed, walk around naked, etc. Lately this is looking like a real possibility since I’ve paid off my college debt and started saving money for a down payment. I’m also expecting house prices to fall in the next year as the economy implodes.
Despite all that, housing is still really expensive where I live and I probably wouldn’t be able to afford a house without a partner or a roommate paying part of the mortgage. My romantic prospects aren’t looking too good and I really don’t want to be a landlord. And I don’t know how I would feel buying a foreclosure. Not to mention I’d be locked into a 30 year mortgage that won’t be paid off until after climate change has forced us all to migrate to Nunavut.
Tell me chapos, what’s the moral thing to do here? Should I keep renting? Buy a house and try to be an “ethical” landlord? Move in with the next woman I meet after the 2nd date? Go join a commune/cult?
Western leftists love to obsess over the ethics of their personal consumption choices, financial decisions and their relationship with the broader system of capitalism. The fact of the matter is you live in capitalism. Nothing you do with your money can be ethical. Just existing in the US is unethical because you’re unwittingly benefiting from the mass exploitation of the global south.
I’m pretty sure I’m definitely going to get downvoted for saying this, but owning property and even owning a business or landlording do not make you reactionary or counterrevolutionary. Back in the 20s it wasn’t uncommon for there to be Communist bars and cafes in parts of Berlin where the owners were members of the KPD and they would host meetings and events for actual revolutionaries. They weren’t worker owned co-ops either, just normal businesses with normal employees. Engels literally owned a factory, Marx liked to gamble his money away on the stock market. It really doesn’t matter what you do with your money as long as you’re not literally trying to fund fascists or whatever. Tbh we could really benefit from professional revolutionaries who don’t need to work to sustain themselves.
Wait, so Marx was an OG WSB poster? This… actually makes a a ton of sense, now that I think about it.