Friedrich Engels owned a factory, making him a capitalist. Sure, it might not be the most ethical thing to do when you consider yourself a communist but it’s not always that black and white. Also, you owning one appartment and renting it out for whatever reason will not make you comparable to big property owners that own 600 houses.
It’s better not to own an appartment that you’re only going to rent out though.
You can be anything and a communist, however certain activities might result in internal/personal contradictions that will plague you and get worse over time. It will be up to you to resolve them, one way or another.
The issue here is not that of a single communist being a landlord, but that of the people not all becoming landlords. At the socialist stage, all land belongs to the state and hence the people, thus everyone is a “landlord”.
Now back to the pre-revolution capitalist society, it is vital that communists control more land and resources, control more means of production, control more media outlets. If something doesn’t belong to a communist, it’s safe to say that it isn’t in the hands of the proletariat either.
Communists are not capitalist philanthropists, and should not be broke volunteers either. There exists a twisted mindset among some communists that they should be poor or own very little private property while helping the proletariat. Indeed, most of the land and means of production would be seized after the revolution, and many communists would gladly give up their private property at that point, but that doesn’t mean that you should have none before. Communists should control as much as they can before the revolution.
If you own more than one house, the extra house can be used for the socialist cause, that includes using it as a base of operations, as a home for people in need, or renting it out as a source of income. The question of being a communist landlord arises if you choose to rent your extra houses. (Selling the house is an option if the funds are then used to empower communists like developing the means of production, or if there is an urgent situation that calls for it.)
There are many scenarios to consider in the case of a communist landlord:
- Cheap rent to those that “deserve” it.
- Normal rent to anyone.
- Expensive rent specifically for high-earning proletariat/petite-bourgeoisie/capitalist.
(I didn’t include free rent as that does not involve a source of income.)
In all three scenarios, a communist may indeed feel guilty of robbing or exploiting others, but be aware that we are considering the pre-revolution capitalist society. If you’re just going to pocket the money for yourself, then you wouldn’t be considered a communist in the first place. Organizing requires time and money/capital. Without Engel’s financial aid, Marx wouldn’t be able to continue his research. Without revolutionary base areas and the aid of peasants in the rural areas, and without the spirit of self-reliance, the Chinese Communists lead by Mao Zedong would not have succeeded in their revolution.
In conclusion, there’s only a problem with being a communist and a landlord if you’re living in a capitalist society and not going to use the rent money for the socialist cause.
Great answer. Highly appreciate it comrade!
Yah, they can - but egh, their allegiance will be questionable if they continue more further in both those roles?
It depends on context
For example:
If a Communist inherits their landlord parent’s properties, for example, they could become two of those roles in the same time temporarily, but ultimately, they’ll have to give up their activism and become landlord or the property for actual housing use instead of the social compulsion to achieve rent…
I’m really interested in the answers because I’m about to inherit an apartment that I don’t plan to live in. Looking at the market, I’m hesitant to sell, as I would have to pay hefty taxes. Letting it stand empty does not make sense.
I did not purposefully purchase this apartment to make money on it, I’d much rather have grandma around, and I’m planning to sell it in about 5 years when we’re gonna be looking for a new place with my parents.
My best bet is renting it out below market price and being a kind and understanding landlord, which sounds like an oxymoron to me too…
Any thoughts on my situation?
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Property management as a service is a little different here, but i definitely don’t want either of the things you mentioned. I haven’t done the full research on what it would take me to rent the place out, but u definitely will. Thank you.
Owning rentals will very likely color your thinking in time. Personally, I decided I was better off not having to second-guess myself over whether they were coloring my point of view, so I got out.
This is a really interesting thought. Can you elaborate a bit?
Elaborate on which aspect? If it helps, I’ve talked about it before.
I’d say live in it or sell it. Sure, you may have to pay taxes on that money you make, but it’s money you wouldn’t have had otherwise (that, and you would have to pay property tax if you held onto it). I don’t see why the concern about taxes would push you into being a landlord.
It would be really unfortunate for me to sell the apartment financially, due to local regulations and having bought and sold real estate recently (sold our cottage and moved in with parents) so I’d rather hold onto it for now. We’re talking about money that wouldn’t get me a year’s worth of rent in another country, so nothing fancy but i want to make smart decisions and just having a big sum of money sitting in the bank is not that. I’d rather rent it to a company (the local factory has lots of foreign workers and they pay for their rent)
as I would have to pay hefty taxes. Letting it stand empty does not make sense.
You can always rent it for a while and think better about your situation. Just selling it and putting the money in the bank just means the bank will be using your money to possibly cause way more damage than you could anyway. Buying shares, at least if you don’t even work in the company is bad too, so holding on to the apartment is not the worst thing you could do and if you sold it it’s possible the new owner would just rent it too.
If you rent you could always see if the person living there would like to buy it from you and so you can even give them a discount based on how long they lived there if you think it’s better too.
and I’m planning to sell it in about 5 years when we’re gonna be looking for a new place with my parents.
If you already know when you need the money you can alway do the math and see what is the best option for you. Let the money stay in the bank, keep the apartment until them… And also check the risks, as in my country, as an example, the goverment has taken peoples savings about thirty years ago when the inflation was bad so who knows if they will do it again. So if you were in my country puting the money in savings would have an extra risk, while perhaps there might be countries where the goverment has made housing cheaper before and could do so again, meaning holding on to the house might not be the best idea either.
Then you these are all really useful pieces of advice. Selling it to the person living in it would work too.
Landlord culture is different in my country, it’s almost exclusively private people and not companies renting out their inheritance while they figure out what to do, or for example, old people selling their huge house, buying 2 flats, renting one out and living in the other, etc so it’s not as horrible as in other places, imo.
I am currently in a slightly similar situation (bought flat 1.5 years ago, was laid off, decided to leave country, if I sell I will incur fines from bank/loss vs purchase price)… I decided to rent the home until I could sell it and ‘break even’ hopefully in 2 years. I set the rent at as close to what I have to pay the bank+insurance+small amount (<100€) for impending repairs. This was under market (I did not actually research the market) as I received a lot of interest and comments when I posted it. I met about a dozen potential tenants in person. I let them know that I did not want to be a landlord and that I would be selling the place as soon as I could break even but that I would be the best landlord I could be regarding the living situation in the flat. I rent to a woman who seems happy with the arrangement. I hate being a landlord but I also don’t want to suffer more financial hardship after being laid off and leaving country. I figure I am at least helping someone to live in a decent place for a ‘fair’ price that would be hard to come by otherwise… Further, not making actual cash profit makes me feel a bit better. But I am creating equity in the property as I pay down the principal ever-so-slowly using this woman’s rent money… I don’t feel good about it on the whole and will be happy to be rid of it.
This sounds fair to me. You didn’t buy the property to profit from renting it. I’d like to either do something like this or find a tenant whose company pays for the rent, there are many in the city - if I were to rent it.
Becoming a landlord isn’t really that different from becoming an investor, for example, as to become one you need a certain ammount of capital and under capitalism no matter where you put that capital you will be exploiting others. And as we live in a system full of crises unless you have “a few million” very diversified anyone could be losing everything in the next crises or when a new goverment comes around, specially if through a coup, and changes the rules. So it’s kinda hard to ask people to give their safety net away when the vast majority are at most a few problems away of losing it all.
So I would say your question makes more sense if we are talking about how much capital a person has, rather than what they do with it (unless they are doing some even worse things with it). So someone with a second house can be a communist no problem, but someone with ten should at the very least be using some of that money to further the cause, not only by giving it to a communist party and the like but also by giving free housing to some who need it, if they consider themselves communists. If they could sell a few houses and use the money to further the cause that’s fine too, although in some countries even that many houses might not be enough to pay for something like a cancer treatment, so it’s hard to say exactly.
The same would be valid if the person had shares or companies or whatever, although if the person directly owns companies the person should definitely give everyone a good salary and let the worker unionize and try to spread it to more people too.
It’s a red flag. At the highest level this boils down to whether that someone is consistently a traitor to their class.
