Historically a lot of property was forcefully removed from their owners, and it was such a success that it became one of the foundations of modern societies. Slaves for instance were property until societies decided that human rights take precedent to property rights. Also laws don't govern natural order, just how societies of humans want to function, so if they decide they want to prioritize one over the other it's their right. With all that in mind, I can definitely see the world where people's right to have a roof over their head is more important than someone's right to extract rent from multiple properties. Not sure what's the benefit for the whole society to have people not doing anything productive anyway. As far as I can tell, people living in their homes are protected and anybody trespassing will be promptly evicted, so the "little guy" or "normal people" are covered.
Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem
781–790 of 930 posts
Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem
#782Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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. I had a friend who bought a house that needed a lot of work. Before he could get started on the remodel, someone broke in t…
> It’s more fun to imagine these people as noble warriors against an unjust society, rather than seem them as people abusing the laws for personal gain at the expense of random victims. Allow me to present a third option: maybe these people aren't noble warriors, they're just victims of an unjust society trying to meet their basic human need for housing. People like your friend are certainly unjustly harmed in this s…
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Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem
#783Earlier quoted context omitted.
> while doing nothing in return If you could see the extent of organization that such a life requires, you wouldn't say that. Especially when the alternative is "I bought this place and now you have to pay to live there" which is the highest form of doing nothing.
> which is the highest form of doing nothing If you can show me how to pay the mortgage by doing nothing, I'd love to know.
When people rent the place you own, do you not charge them ?
Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem
#784Earlier quoted context omitted.
> while doing nothing in return If you could see the extent of organization that such a life requires, you wouldn't say that. Especially when the alternative is "I bought this place and now you have to pay to live there" which is the highest form of doing nothing.
>"I bought this place and now you have to pay to live there" which is the highest form of doing nothing. How can that be worse than "I didnt even buy this place, and now I get to live here"
How can that be worse than "there are millions of unoccupied places, most housing belongs to the same people who don't need it, and yet there are millions living in the street"
It's not just about you
Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem
#785Earlier quoted context omitted.
> while doing nothing in return If you could see the extent of organization that such a life requires, you wouldn't say that. Especially when the alternative is "I bought this place and now you have to pay to live there" which is the highest form of doing nothing.
> "I bought this place and now you have to pay to live there" which is the highest form of doing nothing. It is when you skip out the bit where you have to pay the mortgage or had to save up to buy the place.
And how do you save up when you can't even have a roof over your head
Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem
#786Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem imho is that a lot of people, not only "the very rich" but also some very "middle class" people/families, have access and can make use of houses as investment vehicles, but houses (aka shelter) is also a primary need for humans. If you hold share of a publicly traded company, you can hold it forever until you think somebody can accept to buy it from you at a price that you like, hoping to make a profit if…
> The problem imho is that a lot of people, not only "the very rich" but also some very "middle class" people/families, have access and can make use of houses as investment vehicles, but houses (aka shelter) is also a primary need for humans. As an example, we bought our house for $280k in Iowa seven years ago. It held steady for a bit, but jumped up to close to $400k shortly after Covid. YIMBY policies in my area co…
End foreign owned property, tax vacant property harshly, and offer discount loans to first time owners... there are plenty of options to reduce the pressure on the unhoused. Your house isn't a business and does not continuously create value for the community, why should you be guaranteed profits and have advantage over everyone that cones after you?
Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem
#787Earlier quoted context omitted.
> We can blame the okupas, calling them lazy if that suits you. But (...) I think you are completely missing one of the main origins of okupas in Spain: organized crime involved in extortion schemes. I personally witnessed a case where individuals took over a store lot previously occupied by a restaurant. As the story goes, the restaurant operator tried to negotiate lowering rent to no success, followed by spending m…
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> It's about a landlord who's too greedy (...)
You're letting your antisocial bias show.
The street was packed with businesses. The restaurant was a business hoping to profit by taking over someone else's property against their will. Once their profiting scheme failed, they resorted to pull extortion schemes at the expense of every single person living in a 4 block radius.
You're here talking about greed as if the businesses trying to freeload off of everyone are social justice warriors, when all they were doing is trying to turn a profit by putting everyone around them in danger.
Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem
#788Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But we are missing half the story if we don't consider the other end of the spectrum No, not really. Theft is not the answer. Consider laws restricting how many houses a person can own, or maybe an increasing property tax on each unit. These are good solutions. Condoning theft has no other side to the story, it's always wrong.
> No, not really. Theft is not the answer. Well HN's favored solution seems to be not caring that people are homeless until they start scaring rich people, at which point you lock them up in "mental health" institutions that are less about helping them and more about keeping them away from rich people. My solution is not letting people own homes they don't live in, but that's going to crash a lot of rich people's inv…
> Well HN's favored solution seems to be not caring that people are homeless (...)
I think you're not realizing that "homeless" and "okupas" are completely separate problems, and "okupas" in Spain are typically criminal organizations dedicated to pulling extortion schemes.
I'm talking about lawyer-types riding in BMWs which get a hold of indigents to invade a space, and proceed to demand "compensation" from property owners to "convince" said indigents to walk out.
This is not new or rare. It's a Spanish twist on the old protection rackets, and one which only exists because useful idiots convinced themselves that siding with organized crime networks is somehow benefiting society.
Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem
#789Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
Can you explain why you think that? I will gladly learn something new from you.
Re: Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem
#790Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Or a property that they intended to flip or rent out? Makes a big difference in how the courts would see it. Are you implying that there is something morally wrong about purchasing a rundown (apparently barely liveable) property, renovating it and selling or renting it? How do you expect the supply of housing to increase (and prices to go down in turn) if you disincentive such behaviour? Seems rather absurd...
By incentivizing people renovating, then living in, the rundown house they bought, instead of seeing that option as equally valuable as just selling/renting the house? Its one thing to produce more housing, its another to somehow magically produce more housing in such a way that does not devalue the other resources. Step 1 is to disincentivize speculative/rent-seeking home purchases. Its been said a couple times in s…
Work hard and get your own.