> Rent is, essentially, theft from society itself, it leaves everyone poorer when most people rent.
Not necessarily. It depends on whom you're giving the money to. If it's a profit-oriented company or investor or the like, then I'd tend to agree with you.
On the other hand, I'm renting my apartment from a housing cooperative that I'm also a member of. The cooperative releases a yearly financial report detailing that rents are for the most part used for maintaining the buildings owned by the cooperative, and to buy new land and construct new buildings.
I consider that model very sensible; it allows me to delegate all tasks relating to the maintenance of my apartment to people who are more competent in this area, and who can negotiate better rates with craftspeople.
It also gives me much of the social security that people usually associate with self-owned apartments or buildings since my lease contract literally states that the cooperative is not allowed to throw me out of the apartment (given that I obey the rules of the house, of course). But at the same time, I have the flexibility to easily move to a different apartment somewhere else in the city (or somewhere else entirely) without having to deal with selling the apartment and buying a new one.