Note that half of this country was settled this way.
The alternative that is the current status quo is real estate corporations in New York and Delaware disrupting community fabric 200, 500, 1000 miles away in the name of quarterly profits. Legality is not the measure of morality.
I’ve spent a lot of money at fast food over the years, but no one has given me a franchise.
>Thats what you paid for I presume?
I presume I paid for shelter, but also someone's luxury car or home renovation.
"Property rights" are laughable, especially in America. Stolen or conned resources abound, and all that matters is that someone from the state recognizes your ownership over someone else's (however crooked that circumstance may have come about or been perpetuated).
All humans in the world live, have lived, or will live under the exact same circumstances. It’s a good sounding clip but it’s meaningless, rooted in cynicism, and less than useless since it detracts from the ability to make progress.
Therein lies the rub: you can't. Or, at least, didn't. Each of your statements is falsifiable, particularly the last, which is a confession masquerading as an accusation. There are few worse ways to "make progress" than to dismiss criticism of the status quo out-of-hand.
If you want to hold and exercise property rights, you need to own property. Renting a property does not mean you own it. It's as simple as that.
My argument relies on acknowledging what you've said as the current, horribly dysfunctional reality. You don't need to state it plainly.
What happens to a society when a large subset of the population is forced to subsidize a 100% profit margin on the most expensive basic good most will ever put money towards, and it doesn't even buy them stability or predictability in access to that good? I guess we're going to find out.
As a tangential example: my roommate and I have paid $115,000 in rent for our current unit. Condos in this area went for $250k-$300k in 2018, when we moved in, but we didn't have a down payment. So, fast forward 5 years, and the management company (after jacking up payments 30+%) isn't renewing our lease. Do the math: assuming a hypothetical where the mean payment over this period was stable for a 30-year mortgage, we could have afforded to pay principal+interest+fees+maintenance of almost $700k, almost *two* comparable condos. In a sane system, it would be recognized that "rights" defaulting to an entity that is not paying 2x the holding and upkeep costs of a property is ridiculous at best, and economically unsustainable if a widespread phenomenon (which it is). Instead, my roommate and I get nothing, because we're getting kicked out in a few days. Because we couldn't afford an arbitrary down payment.
The mindless appeal to "property rights" seems to absolve you of the responsibility to consider these complexities, I guess.