“hooks said that she suffered from patriarchy as a landlord b/c the men she employed to work her properties didn’t show her the proper respect sometimes”
“hooks said that she suffered from patriarchy as a landlord b/c the men she employed to work her properties didn’t show her the proper respect sometimes”
I don’t know or care much about bell hooks, but I’m curious to know what comrades think she should have done with her wealth.
AFAIK she made her money from selling popular books, and it seems to me that creating something so engaging that many people want to voluntarily part with their money to consume it is one of the least exploitative possible ways to become wealthy.
So what should she have done with it? It’s not like investing is much better, then you’re just collecting rent in the form of increments of surplus value instead.
I just wonder to what degree we’re continuing the right-wing “Bernie has three houses so is a hypocrite” logic.
Is the only ethical thing to do with wealth earned primarily off your own uniquely valuable labour to fund revolutionary movements and eat lentils? That feels like such an easy opinion to hold when I’ll never have to be in that position myself.
she could have just consumed it or yes donated it to good causes? no one ever makes you use your wealth to expropriate others. that’s why people complaining about :azan: being rich is so funny. for better or worse, he makes his money from his subscribers primarily. that’s his labor. and he’s not out there owning real estate to make even more money. you don’t have to confuse “socialism is a poverty cult”, a right wing anticommunist shtick, with having a problem with a feminist theorist who was also a landlord.
Do you think Hasan doesn’t have investments?
There is no intrinsic demand for stocks. I don’t need stocks to survive. You don’t need stocks to survive. Most stockowners are not even getting dividends from the company, save for a buyback, for the stocks they own. It’s people on the stock market trading back and forth on pieces of paper that are at best partially tied to a company’s actual financials.
She is buying up a commodity that people actually need and directly extracting excess profit (rent) from the people who need to actually use that house. Not just that, but it is one of the most demand price inelastic expenses that people have to pay, meaning that she is directly sucking their wages that could have gone to cover other things.
Being a landlord is uniquely vile among the capitalist class activities.