Recently, I posted an answer to the Quora* question, How is capitalism NOT a zero-sum game?, which is also available on my 1/14/21 blog post. I followed that up by posting a reply to Pascal Morimacil’s answer, available on my blog post of 2/3/21. I then had a conversation with Morimacil. Before I get to that, Morimacil’s answer is reposted here in full:
The basic idea is that if you consider every transaction individually, without looking at anything else, then it kinda seems like both people are better off, since they agree to the trade.
So for example, you pay rent for the right to exist somewhere, and then someone else lets you exist without evicting you. It’s said to be win-win. So, a creation of wealth.
You could analyze a mugging that way, and declare it to be a win-win wealth creating situation.
The victim is paying for the right to exist, and the mugger lets them exist without shooting them. Win-win. If the victim thinks the price is too high, they can just decide not to pay.
You kind of have to ignore the gun, or the threat of eviction
And if you also ignore a lot of other things, like pollution and so on, and rising wealth inequality, well, at some point you are just deciding that money changing hands means things are getting better for everyone.
Again, you can read my reply here, also posted to my blog on 2/3/21. The back-and-forth ensued with Morimacil, which I will post in stages by subject. The subjects are economic, political philosophy, and epistemological. We’ll start with the economic aspect, specifically Morimacil’s landlord/mugger analogy. To his central point, that the threat of eviction equates to force and a mugging, my reply is:
And you should never “ignore the gun, or the threat of eviction,” both of which are instances of force. But the corollary is you should not ignore the nature of that force: Is the force aggressive, or defensive?
From that premise, the analogy is backwards. In the real world, the free-loading renter is the mugger -- that is, the aggressor.
In the legitimate rental transaction, both offer value to the other, and it is a mutually consensual transaction. No force is involved. The renter pays his money, which represents wealth creation to the landlord, in exchange for living in the rental unit, which is wealth creation to the renter, since each is getting a higher value than he is giving up. It’s win-win, by mutual consent. The mugger, on the other hand, offers nothing of value to his victim, and the victim doesn’t consent, because the mugger is using aggressive force to take his victim’s property. The mugger is actually threatening two of his victim’s values, his life and his money. Holding a gun on someone is not wealth creation. Not killing his victim is not a value. It is the negation of a value, not unlike the whip of a slave master. To call the mugger’s actions wealth creation is absurd and a slap in the face to anyone who has ever done an honest day’s work.
If the renter stops paying rent, for whatever reason (need is not a license to steal), the transaction is no longer win-win, and the renter has a moral obligation to vacate the property (assuming the landlord doesn’t grant him rent-free occupancy). If the renter refuses to vacate, despite not paying his rent, he is demanding someone else’s property without offering any value in return and without his consent. It is theft as much as is the mugging. The renter’s refusal to vacate the rental unit is a form of aggressive force, since the renter is physically preventing the owner from re-renting his property, denying him rental income. Thus, the mugger forcibly taking his victim’s money is in principle no different from the renter occupying the landlord’s property without paying rent.
The mugging victim is not “paying” for the “right to exist”; i.e., the right to life. The right to life means only the right of self-ownership and self-governance; i.e., to think and act on one’s own judgement, in pursuit of one’s values, by peaceful respectful means: The right to life does not mean the “right” to force others to provide the means of living (“existing” in your terminology). The right to life, like the right to one’s property, is an inalienable right, held equally by everyone--and that includes the right not to be anyone’s slave. The renter is not paying for his “right to exist.” He is paying for the right to a particular housing unit, derived from the mutually agreed obligation to pay rent to use the landlord’s property. The renter’s non-payment forfeits his right to the housing unit. Being evicted does not forfeit his right to exist, or to his life.
Now let’s say the mugger’s victim manages to flag down a cop, who stops the robbery, apprehends the mugger, and returns the money to the victim. That’s no different from the landlord beginning legal eviction proceedings. Both are acts of self-defense. The government’s only proper purpose is to protect and secure individual rights, including rights to property and free (voluntary, mutually consensual) trade--in effect, to act as the individual’s agent of self-defense. If the landlord gets a court-ordered eviction notice, and the police have to be called to enforce it, that’s no different from a cop coming to the aid of the mugger’s victim. The gun and the eviction are not analogous. The threat of the mugger is aggressive force. The eviction notice is defensive force.
Morimacil replied:
Then you talk about "legitimate rental transactions" that supposedly involve no force, and pretending that the landlord offers value by not evicting people, but that a mugger offers no value by not shooting/stabbing/beating someone up...
It's still the both the same thing. [sic]
If the mugger were to claim that he is in fact letting people use his territory, like the mafia often does when charging "protection" money, and that if people don't agree to pay the mugger, they are "stealing" from him the potential income he could have gotten by mugging others...
it's a bit ridiculous.
The renter is not paying for the right to a particular housing unit: This can be seen from the fact that even unimproved land can be rented out.
How is it a mutually agreed decision, that the landlord gets to own the land and use force to deny access to anyone, forcing them to die of cold exposure on the streets, and then people are forced to pay to even just be left alone for a month to build a shack themselves somewhere?
It seems that you confound the right of people to keep their own money, with the right of a landlord to keep both his land, and a passive income, other people's money.
Evicting people is not defending yourself.
It's ignoring the whole part of the transaction where the rent-seeker hands over nothing, and receives money just in return for not evicting people.
Like a mugger, who gives nothing, but just takes people's money to not hurt them.
My reply, trying not to be repetitious:
The landlord’s so-called “passive” income consists of building and/or maintaining the housing unit. You would be able to see that the “victim” in your story is just a moocher who wants something for nothing. Marx’s mean economic fantasies and psychological machinations notwithstanding, the world doesn’t owe anyone an effortless existence at others’ expense. If you want someone to provide you with good housing (or any value), you should pay for it, as any honorable person understands.
I ignored the part about vacant land, since the issue involves an actual housing unit. Apparently, Morimacil doesn’t consider the housing unit a value because it is built on “vacant land!” But if the building isn’t any more of a value than the vacant lot, then what the hell is he talking about? He’s so confusedI didn’t want to dignify his “point” by posting an answer.
Morimacil Replied, hammering on the unimproved land, which is irrelevant to the issue:
Landlords can rent out unimproved land. Which obviously they didn’t create.
They can rent out buildings, but that doesn’t mean that they are building them or maintaining them themselves, it’s actually workers who do that.
My response:
“Workers do that?” You chose the wrong person to peddle that line. I’m one of those “workers.” I’m a tradesman and member of the plumbers union, and I can tell you I had no hand in making the buildings I worked on happen. Someone else conceived it, financed it, planned it, hired the right people, was responsible for making all of the critical decisions, coordinated the various trades and professions involved, solved problems and conflicts as they occur, and guided the construction project throughout. Yes, I contributed to the project. So did architects, carpenters, masons, roofers, et al.—all under the direction of the prime mover, the owner. Don’t get me wrong. I’m proud of my contributions over my 46 year career as a construction worker. But I’m not arrogant enough to exaggerate my role. Buildings don’t happen because of workers. And they don’t magically appear. Think of that when you champion rent deadbeats. It’s not just the rightfully earned compensation of the “passive” owner your paying for with your rent. It’s also the paychecks of the workers, not to mention the businesses who supply the materials and their workers, or the taxes on the property.
Related Reading:
QUORA: 'How is capitalism NOT a zero-sum game?' -- The Mugger vs the Landlord
QUORA: ‘How is capitalism NOT a zero-sum game?’
QUORA: ‘Is capitalism voluntary?’
QUORA: ‘Why has modern capitalism risen in the West?’
QUORA: 'Can certain forms of capitalism be made to work for the people instead of just the elite?'
QUORA: 'Why do people think capitalism is ethical?'
QUORA: ‘Is it fair to say capitalism has killed more people than communism?’
QUORA *: 'How is capitalism good despite the fact that it creates higher and lower classes?'
QUORA: ‘Given that I live in a capitalist society, how can I avoid having my labor exploited?’
QUORA: "Is having an 'Anarcho-capitalist' society possible?"
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