I know these kinds of hypothetical questions are kind of boring, but I was curious what you guys that about this.

The situation is: I am a relatively wealthy person, with enough investment properties to rent out for income and live off. I decide to rent at a price below the market value and attempt to get tenants who are trying to live in the area but are not financially stable, so I can provide some sort of assistance by giving to them cheaper than they can get elsewhere.

I now don't have to work a single hour a day.

I use a full-time work schedule to do all of the following tasks (aside from other things like cooking, cleaning, exercise) (in no particular order):

  • Manage the properties I own
  • Study theory
  • Attempt various worker organisation activities/union activities
  • Participate in Communist Party meetings
  • Partake in Communist Party activities
  • Volunteer for numerous mutual aid groups
  • Protest
  • Write (online articles) and all the other sorts of activities. In other words, attempt to be a "professional revolutionary" as I believe Lenin put it.

Would this be a moral course of action? Or does living purely off the rent of workers outweigh dedicating basically my whole spare time to my nation's socialist movement?

Edit: Just for context I'm not actually in this position lol.

  • steve5487 [none/use name]
    ·
    3 years ago

    as Lenin said "he who does not work should not eat" if you can support yourself but won't that's parasitism

    there is only one ethical way of getting an income for doing no work and that is working from home and not doing any work

    • Slavoj_Zuckerberg [none/use name]
      ·
      3 years ago

      He did list several forms of "work" that would presumably be done. Thankless work + workless income = a real job™? I think that's at the core of what OP is asking.

      Depending on the properties you could make the argument that if you don't own them to rent (at below market rate), then someone else would obtain them for that purpose sooner or later anyway. There are very few properties in a big city that are owned by the same people who use them, as it stands.

      At the end of the day this example is pretty contrived. I doubt there are even 3 such landlords in the US.

      • steve5487 [none/use name]
        ·
        3 years ago

        the issue with the idea that the landlord does work by maintaining the property is that the work done to maintain the property contributes and maintains the value of the property which the landlord owns thus they do work, keep the value all while charging the tenant.

        • Slavoj_Zuckerberg [none/use name]
          ·
          3 years ago

          I agree but that isn't what I meant by work. I'm including the agitation and study as work as well here. This hypothetical landlord would be doing work that might, hypothetically, equal the amount of money they take in. The labour and the income would be decoupled but there would still, again hypothetically be worthwhile labour done.

          I think the problem comes down to whether it's reasonable that those specific renters have to pay "for" that specific labour. Would this professional revolutionary and class traitor really make enough of a difference locally that it would be worth the cost to that group of people? Unlikely. So it depends on how you frame it whether this one good landlord™ would be a leech. In a bigger picture perhaps not because useful labour is being done, but if you place the frame around just the landlord-tenant relationship, definitely.

          I will say however, if you restrict your revolutionary activities to those that look good and balanced from any angle, in any framing, you limit your chances significantly. Assuming you are doing truly good revolutionary work, those who would call you a hypocrite wouldn't have taken you seriously or engaged with you in good faith anyway.