Flippanarchy

No I don't think you're a bad person. I don't even think what you are doing is bad. I think with regards to the system, you're right in a sense, but similar to the way that claiming "personal responsibility" can shield the system from responsibility, I think claiming systematic cause when it is actually individual, or even a bit more balanced between the two, can shield the individual from taking responsibility. But I agree that it is largely a systematic issue.

It reminds me of the movie "Sorry to Bother You" (written and directed by revolutionary Marxist Communist, Boots Riley). At the beginning, LaKeith Stanfield's character is jobless, living in his uncle's garage. His uncle, not exactly Mr. Moneybags himself, hassles Stanfield for this month's rent. Stanfield, somewhat sheepishly, but righteously indignant, comes back with like "yeah well you're oppressing be because you're a landlord" and his uncle hits back, "if you don't pay your rent, I lose my house and we are both homeless". Later in the movie, which explores themes of middle-class opportunism, imperialism, chattel wage slavery, genetic modification and billionaire decadence, that early scene looks more like a case of poor people fighting each other over petty differences driven by systems that benefit billionaires.

But I believe that "middle class" consciousness is some stubborn bullshit that comes on quick. We have to be able to check ourselves, our perceptions and evaluations of others. I think its really important for people to stay in tune with their community, participate in mutual aid or poli organizing if possible to keep challenging our preconceptions.

The thing is, being middle class wears you down. I've known lots of small landlords through prior job experience. The most common kind is like you. Works on their own properties, puts their own money up for repairs, hustles. Its much different than how a lot of anarchists and leftists describe landlords as never doing any work. Granted, some of the work they do, like evicting people, is work, its just like evil. But also I've seen absolute horrors wrt trashing out an old apartment or rental property. Like, I fully sympathize with someone who had to pay too much to live in some shitty apartment, not even all the way shitty because it belongs to a slumlord, but because the tenants just trash it. Drug addiction, poverty, economic discrimination, all systematic. But that shit wears people down. The landlord basically have "no choice" but to evict, or they lose the whole value of the house. But, you can see how its turning middle class people against their poorer tenants, and vice versa. I've had many landlords who I'm sure were alright in some other context, but never befriended one. I've known landlords who always "did their best" for tenants, but the best for a tenant is never quite as good as it is for the owner. How can it be? In capitalism, you put people beneath you or you get pushed down, at least, that is the first impulse of the middle class, who enjoys some some human rights as economic freedoms, but constantly feels like its being taken away.

Being a landlord materially sets you against the poor and the left. You come here and everyone says you're evil, go almost anywhere else and people will tell you you aren't doing anything wrong. Its self reinforcing. You don't have to be a bad person to become a bad landlord. The system that legitimizes these contradictory social relations, that compelled you to take one role in the social antagonism while it compels others to assume the other role, will make you a worse person. It will prejudice you and give you good reason to do things you never would have done before, without those pressures.

Frankly, I think owning a single property and renting it is fine as a transitional situation. But transitional to what? You're not really gonna make a "living" by only owning one property, and its gonna end up being more trouble than its worth unless you use it to expand. The more properties someone takes on, the more likely it is to have to do awful shit like call the sheriff to evict somebody. And at every step it will appear like you're not doing anything wrong.

Even of being a landlord doesn't make you a bad person, I believe it will never make someone a good person. If we take seriously the question of "who do I want to become" keep in mind that the unjust system is more than happy to make you or me landlords, because once we are, then innocently defending whatever meager middle class gains we are able to make in our own lives will require making the lives of countless others worse.