Jesus. The "absolutely shitty landlords" was in a quote block because it came from the comment I was responding to. That was their tone, not mine. In case you want it spelled out, landlords aren't evil.

Did you look up what rent extraction was? I'll let you look into it, I'm not a dictionary. Car rentals aren't considered rent extraction because they aren't a scarce resource. By definition they are mobile: someone can't own ALL the cars in an area, because someone could buy one and bring it into town.

Land (and by extension HOMES) are scarce, especially by location. If someone owns all the land in an area, someone can't just... Drive more into the area? A landowner could build more homes on their land (development), but the rent being EXTRACTED is by definition that component of its price beyond it's costs of construction and maintenance.

Adam Smith took issue with rent [his term is rent, but it's more specifically rent EXTRACTION] because rent is unproductive: it is defined and quantified by HOW MUCH MORE it is than what it costs to produce and maintain the things being rented. Whereas other commodity prices are determined by what it costs to bring it to market (wages+profit), rent is determined by HOW MUCH MORE. They extract their price simply by wielding their ownership over it, and the profit they derive from it is defined by that unproductive component of its price.

That's capitalism, and that sucks, but it's where we are right now.

Well fuck me, I guess, right? Guess we're stuck with it?

Fuck off with your demeaning tone. If landlords disappeared tonight the world would be quantifiably better (those were my words that time, have fun)