Read on Twitter
I suck at reading, but I still feel like I’ve learned a lot the past few years, by engaging directly in my & my neighbours’ struggles, and spending a lot of time thinking about & discussing those struggles. I’m trying to get better at ‘reading theory’, but in the meantime… https://twitter.com/patersonmonday/status/1323636550622683136
I’ve learned that the landlord-tenant (or boss-worker) relationship isn’t like other exchanges of goods or services. It’s based on a power differential, represented by control of or access to capital, and can only exist with the cooperation of the state to maintain & enforce it.
I learned this by seeing landlords inherit properties, or get massive loans (or gifts) from family to buy them, or use their connections to get money from shareholders & investors. They don’t build or maintain ‘their’ buildings — they hire others to do that for them… with our $. https://twitter.com/parkdaleorg/status/1121438330305044483
I’ve seen, by looking at rent rolls & expenses, how little relation there is between the value of the labour put into maintaining a property & the profits extracted through rent. Rather, rents are set based on how much a person can be forced to pay, under threat of dispossession.
And I say forced because unlike most goods and services, shelter is something we need to survive, and those who try to create their own safe shelter in so-called ‘public’ spaces are harassed (or worse) by agents of the state. https://twitter.com/zoedodd/status/1313681825265520640
And speaking of those agents of the state, I’ve learned that they are not here to serve or protect my neighbours and I; they are here primarily to enforce ‘property rights’ for the propertied class. https://twitter.com/peoples_defence/status/1318237684410798080
When landlords break the laws that govern them, do the police come? No. If you try calling them, as my neighbour did, they will tell you in no uncertain terms that it’s not their jurisdiction, and to file an application at the Landlord Tenant Board (LTB).
But they come awful quick whenever a landlord calls — and come in force and number so far out of proportion to the situation that the only possible conclusion is that their role is more to intimidate and discipline and coerce, than to ’keep the peace’. https://twitter.com/parkdaleorg/status/1322969241482612738
When tenants attempt to deliver a letter, say, to their landlord, at the landlord’s registered business address, or when a landlord wants a tenant out, they have little concern over whether meddling in landlord-tenant affairs is their jurisdiction: if a landlord calls, they come.
And when they do, without fail, they will drive home the message that ‘you have to go through the proper channels’ — meaning the LTB.
https://www.facebook.com/parkdaleorganize/posts/2620802914802259
https://www.facebook.com/parkdaleorganize/posts/2620802914802259
And I’ve learned, by attending hearings, by reading the relevant laws, by reading case summaries & judgements, that the RTA & LTB are squarely in a landlord’s favour. What ‘protections’ exist on paper are inadequate at best, and completely ineffectual at worst. https://twitter.com/dsherwoodb/status/1034121199209644032
What these minor reforms do, though — reforms won at great cost in time & energy by people who could be organizing instead — is placate tenants, and lull them into a false sense of security, with empty assurances that ‘the system works’… until, that is, they come up against it.
And when one has learned these things, and how there are far more of us on one side of this injustice than the other, it becomes even clearer that the role of the state is to maintain that injustice — whether by distraction, appeasement, or deceit... or when necessary, by force.
It is why force is the exclusive ‘right’ of the state. If a landlord tries to enter your home unlawfully, and you physically prevent them, let’s say by pushing them, you’ll probably be charged with assault.
(Incidentally, I just heard yesterday that a guy I know with a non-profit for a landlord is currently in jail charged with assault for allegedly pushing a staff person’s hand out of his face during an argument)
But if you step foot on your landlord’s lawn, you’ll get people with guns come shove you off it, and if you resist, the threat of greater violence is clear. https://twitter.com/vinsonsalim/status/1323117771685769217
That threat of violence, and the exclusive right to its use that the state claims for itself, is what the entire system is built on. The more you challenge that system, the clearer that gets.
I don’t want to claim the right to violence for myself — I want that ‘right' removed from the state and the classes on whose behalf it is wielded. I want to know how we’d organize & govern ourselves if violent coercion was off the table. I have to believe it could only be better.
This is all no doubt pretty 101 stuff for the folks who read a lot. And for ppl who learn well that way, fill yer boots. I still want to get better at reading, and I do read some shorter, secondary texts (and listen & watch things), in hopes I can build to reading longer stuff.
But for now, I learn best by doing stuff, then thinking about and discussing it with comrades, asking q’s, then thinking some more… And I tend to bristle — and maybe get overly defensive, at the cost of showing my whole ass lol — when ppl insist theirs is the only way to learn.
