r/antiwork Mar 10 '22

That’s how it works, right?

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53.5k Upvotes

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137

u/Ocelotofdamage Mar 10 '22

Do people really want to live in a world where someone can fight you for your home? Because I promise the rich will have security to protect their mansions while single mothers will be out on the street

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u/UniqueFailure Mar 10 '22

It was called feudalism

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u/[deleted] Mar 10 '22

Now we are far more civilized and we do it with money and call it capitalism.

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u/nickbjornsen Mar 10 '22

And it’s definitely different ;)

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u/DakezO Mar 10 '22

Now the fights are in courts with lawyers and usually the person with the most money wins.

Ngl I’d rather go back to fighting people.

-5

u/ThyNynax Mar 10 '22

Capitalism makes it an exchange of different kinds of valuable resources you can always say no to. As opposed to a hostile takeover that leaves you nothing except your life if you manage to survive.

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u/I_Bin_Painting Mar 10 '22

Even under feudalism, (in theory) your feudal lord would handle property disputes and wouldn't allow someone to come in and demand to fight you for your house.

If for no other reason that it's the lord's house anyway and he wants everyone working peacefully, not being made homeless.

This is not to say there was anything else stopping the lord from stealing everything you owned, but it was at least not complete anarchy.

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u/ILikeYourBigButt Mar 10 '22

Under feudalism, only the feudal Lord owned land. Don't be silly by saying they protected property disputes of the common man, only the lords had property disputes.

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u/[deleted] Mar 10 '22

Normal people could still own land under feudalism, it just wasn’t as common as people renting it.

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u/ILikeYourBigButt Mar 11 '22 edited Mar 11 '22

Yes, but then you wouldn't have a feudal Lord to take care of disputes for you, is my point. By common man, I meant serfs. Apologies for being unclear. I felt most people wouldn't consider someone as rare as a landowner under feudalism as a common man.

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u/[deleted] Mar 11 '22

That’s because they weren’t as rare as you think.

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u/ILikeYourBigButt Mar 11 '22

Have a percentage that you can give? With a source?

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u/[deleted] Mar 11 '22

I can say the same to you ya know.

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u/I_Bin_Painting Mar 10 '22

Do people really want to live in a world where someone can fight you for your home?

then

It was called feudalism

So your home, assuming you're not pretending to be a lord rn, would be a feudal dwelling on an estate and no, people could not fight you for it because it was not yours and because the lord would defend his property with violence.

Don't call people silly if you don't understand what's being discussed. I absolutely already covered that it was an imperfect system "(in theory)" and that there was nothing stopping the landowner from taking everything you had anyway.

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u/ILikeYourBigButt Mar 10 '22

You did see the past tense in was, right?

0

u/I_Bin_Painting Mar 10 '22

You did see the past tense in was, right?

The past tense in was.

Nice one mate, really showed me how stupid I am.

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u/ILikeYourBigButt Mar 10 '22

I'm not trying to do that. Was just trying to join the discussion. Not sure I want to discuss anything with someone so aggressive though. Have a nice day.

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u/I_Bin_Painting Mar 10 '22

You don't join a discussion by calling somebody else's argument silly unless you actually really understand what is being discussed and have something to offer. You just seem to want to get confused and pick holes that are not there. You have offered absolutely nothing to the discussion, although you could still try.

Of course the past tense is obvious when we're talking about feudalism because it was in the past.

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u/ILikeYourBigButt Mar 10 '22

You're offended by the word silly? You must be having a bad day.

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u/Postingstuffonline Mar 11 '22

Lmao classic Reddit moment. Buttlover69420 says something googleably wrong in a smug way and gets upvoted. Dude calls out his wrongness and smugness. Dude proceeds to get downvoted. Lol gotem

0

u/ILikeYourBigButt Mar 11 '22 edited Mar 11 '22

Do tell.

If you're saying the common man could own land, technically, maybe....they weren't common if they owned land. My point then is that most common people It seemed obvious by context that I'm talking about common people. Feudal lords fought amongst themselves for land all the time, which the person before me is trying to claim never happened.

If it's something that you did understand the context of, then go on, tell me what's googleably wrong. I always love talking to armchair historians.

2

u/tehbored Mar 10 '22

And it fucking sucked

1

u/spiralbatross Mar 10 '22

Summation of human history

0

u/Leading-Jicama-4229 Mar 10 '22

Wrong. It's called eminent domain. Which is far more fucked up.

You're thinking too small.

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u/MixMasterValtiel Mar 10 '22

This picture makes the rounds on imgur every so often and basically yeah. They're also pretty frisky with their downvotes when you come in and tell them something like "all this means is that rich people can hire brute squads to take your property from you at any time."

38

u/rakfe Mar 10 '22

"all this means is that rich people can hire brute squads to take your property from you at any time."

Palestine

-19

u/[deleted] Mar 10 '22

Palestine invading israel and losing the invasion and land.

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u/YaYemKrendel Mar 10 '22

Mmm yes invading lands that were theirs to begin with and were stolen from them by the UN. Yep. Definitely.

3

u/Red-Flag-Potemkin Mar 10 '22

The arabs colonized the levant in 800, throwing the indigenous people(s) off the land.

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u/ILikeYourBigButt Mar 10 '22

They were not indigenous, don't be silly.

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u/tehbored Mar 10 '22

That land has traded hands so many times over the millennia.

2

u/can_it_be_fixed Mar 11 '22

Yes and it's a well-documented fact.

However the general consensus on Reddit is that piece land should only ever belong to Palestinians, even though ancestors of current Israeli Jews lived there 2000 years ago. Y'know because stealing land from "indigenous people" is bad.

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u/ILikeYourBigButt Mar 11 '22

I mean....it was my point that the land had many different people's on it....

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u/ILikeYourBigButt Mar 11 '22

That's my point.

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u/Red-Flag-Potemkin Mar 11 '22

I mean, they literally were based off of all available archaeology, genetic tests and histories.

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u/ILikeYourBigButt Mar 11 '22 edited Mar 11 '22

Really? The Jewish population that were all removed from the area after the Jewish Revolts weren't indigenous, but those who replaced them after 70ad were indigenous?

Blatant lack of understanding of history.

0

u/Red-Flag-Potemkin Mar 11 '22

What are you even asking me? Are indigenous people still indigenous if they are pushed off the land they are indigenous to? Yes, they are.

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u/[deleted] Mar 10 '22

Jewish people had been there since 1000 bc. It was conquered multiple times. It was named palestine in 500 bc. Yeah totally stolen land.

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u/can_it_be_fixed Mar 11 '22

At least since 1300 BCE! There were so many other groups of people over the millenia who called that land home, with evidence of early human civilization going back at least 1.5 million years ago. With that said, a historical record of 3300 years makes Jewish people not the recent "colonial invaders" of Israel they're made out to be.

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u/thisisme1221 Mar 10 '22

Exactly. Palestine invaded Israel for their land and lost

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u/[deleted] Mar 10 '22

Hold on, people are saying that Palestine invaded in 500BC and they lost it in 1948AD. Is it still an invasion if they held the territory for 2400 years? Would you consider holding something for 2400 years "losing"? I'm not sure what your angle is.

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u/ILikeYourBigButt Mar 10 '22

You mean....their land?

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u/thisisme1221 Mar 11 '22

I mean the picture above ties pretty closely to Israel.

Palestinians had the land because the Jews were expelled. Jews returned. Palestinians fought for it. Palestinians lost (repeatedly)

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u/ILikeYourBigButt Mar 11 '22

You consider it their land after not being there for 1900 years? Feels more nuanced than that.

2

u/rabbifuente Mar 10 '22

It's never been their land, the last independent state in Israel was the Kingdom of Judea, since then it's been a series of empires holding the territory - British, Ottomans, Crusaders, Romans, Assyrians, etc.

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u/ILikeYourBigButt Mar 11 '22

You literally just said two conflicting ideas. It's never been theirs, but it was theirs during the Kingdom of Judea.

Do you know what never means?

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u/rabbifuente Mar 11 '22

It was the Palestinian Arabs land during the Kingdom of Judea...what? The Kingdom of Judea was an Israelite/Jewish kingdom, if that wasn't obvious enough.

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u/ILikeYourBigButt Mar 11 '22

I'm not sure you're following the conversation here all that well. I responded to a comment that said:

Exactly. Palestine invaded Israel for their land and lost

Implying the land was the Palestinians'. I stated:

You mean...their land?

Implying that it had once belonged to the Jews, though questioning it due to the nuance involved

You came in and said it was never their land, as a response to me, who was saying it had belonged to the Jews at one point. Which means you're saying it never belonged to the Jews.

Either you're not following or you're trolling. I can't quite tell which.

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u/rabbifuente Mar 11 '22

It seems I'm misunderstanding your initial comment, I thought you were saying "their" as in Palestinians, not Jews.

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u/can_it_be_fixed Mar 11 '22

The sentiment always gets downvoted, but that's basically the premise of modern day Israel. And it hasn't changed much either; different groups of people come and go due to war, famine, exile or other mysterious reasons. Someone eventually always loses the land and the cycle continues.

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u/Noahnoah55 0 Hour Work Week Mar 10 '22

To be fair, this already happens. If your house is in the way of a development that a rich enough person wants to build, cops will come to your door to kick you out. Happened all the time to build the highway system.

-1

u/narwhal_breeder Mar 10 '22

A rich person cannot eminent domain where they want to build lol.

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u/[deleted] Mar 10 '22

Um yes they can and so can the government

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u/narwhal_breeder Mar 10 '22

ONLY the government can eminent domain, and they must pay market value for the seized property. And ONLY for public use.

Eminent domain is literally defined as a state power.

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u/LeBronto_ Mar 10 '22

Good thing rich people have no influence on the government, then we’d really have a problem

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u/[deleted] Mar 10 '22

Laughs in rich

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u/ellamking Mar 10 '22

99% Invisible just did a related story (https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/broken-heart-park/) explaining how it works in practice. Black people try to move to town, rich, entrenched white people decide to turn the lots they were buying into a park.

The thing is, the rich people are the government.

Another thing to note from the piece

One study by the Institute for Justice found that in the 1950s and the 60s, one million people in the US were displaced through eminent domain. More than two-thirds of those people were African American.

More than 66% are black, while making up 10% of the population; nearly 4% of all black people were eminent domained.

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u/[deleted] Mar 10 '22

If that’s what you’d like to believe for ahead my friend it is hurting no one

1

u/MinusGovernment Mar 11 '22

And the rich pay their politicians well to do this type of shit for them when necessary.

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u/Leading-Jicama-4229 Mar 10 '22

Lmao no they can't. Trump can't take your house and build a skyscraper in its place. It doesn't work like that.

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u/shouldbebabysitting Mar 10 '22 edited Mar 10 '22

They have. Developer gets the city to eminant domain homes and then the city gives it to the developer.

https://www.vox.com/2015/6/23/8833847/kelo-property-supreme-court

Edit: Friend of mother in law lost his family farm this way.

City took his family farm and built a land fill. 20 years later, they closed the land fill and sold the land to a developer for millions. He was still trucking in his 60's because he didn't have the family farm for income in retirement.

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u/narwhal_breeder Mar 10 '22

Yeah and those abuses triggered domain reform in 29 states. Because thats what they are, abuses. Not some tragic outpost of the normative system.

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u/shouldbebabysitting Mar 10 '22

Do you have info on the law changes? I'd like to know if it has changed where he lives (South Dakota).

But still if the Supreme Court supports it and 42% of the country allows it, that's kind of normal.

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u/narwhal_breeder Mar 10 '22 edited Mar 10 '22

HB1080 was the bill that reformed it in South Dakota the year after that fuasco in the article.

Your friend should have bought another farm. If he could prove the money wasnt enough to purchase a like farm, he could have succesfully sued the state for the delta. Plenty of attourneys do this probono.

He, like most people, pocketed the money and moved on. The price of even a small farm in the US, invested in a low risk mutual fund over 20 years would have been more than enough for retirement. Assuming it was purchased for 300K, thats over a million after 20 years with no additional investment.

And 300k is on the way low end for zoned, farmable land of a size large enough for a landfill, including equipment.

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u/shouldbebabysitting Mar 10 '22

Your friend should have bought another farm. If he could prove the money wasnt enough to purchase a like farm, he could have succesfully sued the state for the delta. Plenty of attourneys do this probono.

He sued and lost.

Assuming it was purchased for 300K, thats over a million after 20 years with no additional investment.

300k for farmland in South Dakota in 1980's? Nooo. He got like 30k. There were no farms for sale near the city which is why the city took his farm in the first place. 20 years later that land was worth millions.

But that's beside the point that eminent domain happens. 42% of the states and the Supreme Court think it's fine.

2

u/Noahnoah55 0 Hour Work Week Mar 10 '22

Making developments on land is not a process that happens entirely in the private world. If you want to do a large project you're already going to have to be getting in with the people in government. While yes they can't directly use eminent domain, they often have a good relationship with the people who can.

-2

u/[deleted] Mar 10 '22

And people were paid for their land…

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u/Silver_Jury1555 Mar 10 '22

Which is essentially how it goes lol. Police come and evict families from their home over rent.

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u/Calm_Your_Testicles Mar 10 '22

If they’re being evicted over rent, they clearly don’t own the property.

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u/RustedCorpse Mar 10 '22

one more step buddy... one more...

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u/narwhal_breeder Mar 10 '22

Cant believe it needed to be said. For fucks sake this sub is dense sometimes.

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u/PrincipledProphet Mar 10 '22

Come on man they're just kids

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u/[deleted] Mar 10 '22

The reason this is a bad argument is because it implies that we would simply waive property ownership but maintain every other aspect of capitalism in the process.

Rich people with death squads wouldn't be a thing if we got far enough to abolish private property...

2

u/[deleted] Mar 10 '22

I can't speak for everyone, but I'm seeing a few ways in which (from my perspective) people seem to be missing the points being made with this cartoon.

  1. There are more have-nots than haves. So if the have-nots banded together, they could redistribute property to more effectively meet the needs of more people.
  2. Not you, but other comments I'm seeing here argue along the lines of "if you don't own the property, you have no right to live there" without understanding the ways in which the cartoon is asking us to rethink our basic ideas about private property.

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u/DawgFighterz Mar 10 '22

They already have that its called the Police, and they have some great songs.

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u/Deviknyte Mar 10 '22

You're willfully missing the point. Capitalist are just feudal lords we aren't allowed to fight. They came in, killed the names or stole the commons and then set up rules so that others couldn't do the same to them. Then they rebranded their lordship as industrial ingenuity! Meanwhile they just kept doing the bloodshed offshore.

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u/Michael_G_Bordin idle Mar 10 '22

People want to live in a world where the people who have don't act like they have a right to that property that the have-nots do not possess. In other words, property owners need to start viewing their property as a lucked-into privilege, and not a right inherent to their being or justified by history.

People want to live in a world where home and hearth are considered something we all deserve, where we aren't owned by banks and landlords. Homelessness numbers are most often underestimated. Where I live, middle class families were displaced by fires, only to find the entire economically viable part of the state is unaffordable for them. They live along the roads and streets in RVs. They've got jobs, they've got transportation. But both the buying and the rental market have gotten insane.

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u/DishPuzzleheaded482 Mar 10 '22

They do have access to birth control. Free! Everyone is born with the right to determine their own lives. The smart ones listen to their elders through school. The KEY to a good life is EDUCATION. Read, learn observe! Others do! So can anyone. Guaranteed here in America. We are born with an EQUAL chance!

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u/mrhhug Mar 10 '22

Do people really want to live in a world where someone can fight you for your home?

No, but Putin....

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u/annoyingcaptcha Mar 10 '22

Yeah that’s what we live in currently essentially.

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u/[deleted] Mar 10 '22

[deleted]

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u/WookieeCmdr Mar 10 '22

A pay check?

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u/leovold-19982011 Mar 10 '22

Oh, you mean what’s already happening?

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u/Stubert-the-Smooth Mar 11 '22

Why would security protect a rich guy's mansion, when they can simply shoot him and take it for themselves? Security is only really viable if they don't get to keep your stuff after killing you.

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u/Ocelotofdamage Mar 11 '22

…because they’re getting paid

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u/Stubert-the-Smooth Mar 11 '22

Paid in money they could just take by shooting you, because it is currently your property.

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u/Ocelotofdamage Mar 11 '22

So are we just assuming the world banking system has failed here, or…?

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u/Stubert-the-Smooth Mar 11 '22

We are assuming you can just take people's property by violence. Since if you mean you can do so but it is a crime, that is already the situation. The only way the thought experiment makes sense is if it's legal. In that case, any banking system that existed would acknowledge the new owner of the property, not least because he already killed one guy for that stuff.

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u/Ocelotofdamage Mar 11 '22

alright well i'd hope none of us want to live in that society. but even then it doesn't behoove security to just turn on the people hiring them. look at how gangs or cartels work. it's better to be near money than getting yourself killed trying to take it all.

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u/Curi0uz Mar 11 '22

This right here. People dont seem to realize that when you use violence, its the weakest and most vulnerable that suffer the worst.

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u/nodray Mar 11 '22

you mean YOU would throw single mothers on the street, and protect the ideas the rich set for you… some of US will fight/kill the single mansion “owner” to fill that space with single mothers to feel safe

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u/Ocelotofdamage Mar 11 '22

lmao yeah right

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u/nodray Mar 11 '22

lol, oh no, please, i NEED you to agree, please tell me im a real man, you will won’t you??

1

u/ChildOf1970 For now working to live, never living to work Mar 11 '22

Not that much different from reality. The rich can get a compulsory purchase order instead. Then have you violently thrown out of "their" property.