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Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

idealista.com

641–650 of 930 posts

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In general, I'm getting the impression from your comment that you have some overly idealistic beliefs, and that you're perhaps unwilling to engage honestly with ideas that are counter to your own, but in any case.. I like precise logical argumentation, that's not idealism, I don't make any unnecessary assumptions > I'm also not quite sure why you would find it hard to agree with the notion that, throughout history,…

> I like precise logical argumentation That's not quite how your comments elsewhere in this thread read lol > This is not true, many civilizations were against private property rights and private property rights were never universal Wanna name a couple of those civilizations that didn't have property rights that managed to thrive and grow beyond a population of like 10,000? If you're going to point towards something…

It seems like you don't discuss in a good faith to be honest.

> That's not quite how your comments elsewhere in this thread read lol

What do you don't understand? I can try to explain in more elementarily if you have problems with understanding something.

> Wanna name a couple of those civilizations that didn't have property rights that managed to thrive and grow beyond a population of like 10,000?

This list can be quite relevant, some of those project existed for a short time, some for longer: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1W1wWjWNXhvHjMzzyxT5z5Es_...

>Brother, they showed up with guns and took over buildings by force; they destroyed the land records for everyone, not just their specific "members" - if that's not coercion, what is?

What do you think about genocide of Indigenous Americans? Is it okay? Or can they defend themselves?

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was actually kind:) Bad hygiene, unpaid debts, delinquency, women and child abuse, antisemitism can easily be added to the picture.

Most anarchists are feminists and they are against anti-semitism. Historically a few theoreticians were anti-Semites, but most were not. You seem to just be dehumanizing other people who have different views than you, which is disgusting and not something you should be proud of.

you don't even seem to understand what dehumanizing means

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buying a house and purposefully leaving it empty is immoral, sqatting or not.

This is not correct; purchasing real estate is obviously morally neutral.

That's probably why there was a second clause to their statement, which you appear to have ignored.

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#644
Isn't it also a strange disconnect to support squatting to that degree (or generally downgrade, explain away, tolerate most crime) and also wonder about the growth of the extreme right in Europe? (Not just in Europe, obviously). Many were mentioning the emotional toll on small property owners. Un-responded crime is necessarily very present on the victims, potential victims, their families. Relations with China are all very nice but constant alertness and lack of recourse has a very present weight.

Same as the impact on construction really. The risk of squatters or other hard to remove tenants is the obvious objection to owning rental property (i.e. supporting construction of new property - both in capital, labor for that construction and then availability on the market.)

European assembly elections this weekend. With many quite worried.

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#645

I live in Spain and own property in Spain. There's clearly a gap between imaginary noble okupas addressing housing crisis via occupation of unused bank property and reality of weed smoking anarchists and their collaborating deoccupying mafia harassing mostly not-so-rich middle class, who can't afford the security measures the rich can. It's not a small problem, there's like 12K cases per year last time I checked. Eve…

I read somewhere that the situation is similar in Portgual with unused housing.

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#646
post #599
post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's besides the point what I think is morally wrong or right. There is a legal difference between "occupying" someone's primary residence, and occupying other types of properties. The first isn't considered "occupying" here but rather "breaking and entering", and the local police are very quick at acting on those types of crimes, especially if the criminals are still inside the property.

No. It doesn't matter whether it is a primary residence, secondary residence, or an investment property. It is the property of someone else. Without permission, opening the door or window and going into it is breaking and entering. And do not try to argue that breaking, entering, and squatting somehow reduces the housing shortage — the effect is the exact opposite. With insecure property access and rights, people wil…

You can upgrade from trespassing to B&E by gently pushing an unlocked door to gain access so I think the term is a little loaded here, considering you are trying to claim moral equivalence between 1) entering someones home for burglary or to actively displace the residents and 2) squatting a vacant and unused building

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you define abandoned? If I leave for 1 day is that abandoned? What about 1 week, 1 month or 1 year?

I think it depends on local customs and local agreements, it can differ. I guess I could consider a house abandoned if no one lives there for a year or 2. While for a mine, I think I would consider it abandoned the moment previous miners left it, such that other can get into the mine and mine some resource.

I'm a little confused. You said you want to get rid of private property but also your residence is occupied so I can't stay there. Who gave you the right to say that? If there is no private property it seems like we should be able to vote who can stay in your residence.

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you abolish property rights, your two options are state slavery or anarchy where the strong take whatever they can. I'm pretty sure they're talking about real property. Land and improvements. Not the strong taking away everything you have. And there are reasonable ways to manage land and housing other than private ownership. There's also the option of limiting it to personal use.

>I'm pretty sure they're talking about real property. Land and improvements. Not the strong taking away everything you have. An individual has to be very careful not to create any real property value or improvements, otherwise it will be taken from you. Conceptually there are lots of solutions to managing this problem. Historically, they rely on a state institution that goes around stripping people of what they creat…

> An individual has to be very careful not to create any real property value or improvements, otherwise it will be taken from you.

This is the experience of the vast majority of renters. It's not too bad.

And something like "you can own X amount of house" doesn't require going anywhere near communism.

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Refusing to pay for a place to live is simply theft and entitlement. They expect people to build and maintain homes for them while doing nothing in return. If you abolish property rights, your two options are state slavery or anarchy where the strong take whatever they can. These misguided ideologies can only live parasitic ally on the fringe of a otherwise functional society. If they got their way, the society would…

For most of our history humans did not have to pay for a piece of land to put up some yurt or hut and live there. How is the current system not strong taking whatever they can? Private property is just a legitimized theft, because it leaves some people without access to land or natural resources that is required for survival. It's not true that without private property you get state slavery or a strongman situation,…

"For most of our history humans did not have to pay for a piece of land to put up some yurt or hut and live there."

You can still put up your yurt or hut in many places of the Earth, probably including Chiapas, but it seems that more people want to live in London, Munich, Tokio or Barcelona.

Show me a place with a stateless society and without private property that actually attracts nontrivial amounts of people. You speak of such places highly and reverently, but for all their highest level of freethought, they don't seem to compete well with traditional urban centers of the capitalist world.

When voting with their feet, people mostly move to wealthy countries that protect personal property, not away from them.

Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem

#650

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not correct; purchasing real estate is obviously morally neutral.

That's probably why there was a second clause to their statement, which you appear to have ignored.

A fair point. I thought what I was saying was too obvious to expound further, but here goes:

Buying a house in order to leave it vacant is morally neutral. To wit,

Mike Murderer buys up real estate along the river and leaves it empty so that the dead bodies he stores inside are not discovered. Mike has acted immorally!

Mayor Susan convinces the city council to buy up real estate along the river and leave it empty to facilitate moving the residents there to higher ground to avoid expensive and dangerous seasonal flooding. Susan has acted morally.

But they both took the same positive action: purchasing real estate. This action was morally neutral.

As other people in this thread have correctly noted, it’s the justification not the action that has moral implications.

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