I guess the question would be "who is capturing the value" of the rental.
In some interesting ways - socialism is fairly close to the idea of "a person who cannot buy and outright own the tools needed for their work". Except the moral justification for that system is that the "owner" who is capturing the value is "all of us". Communism is also there, but it's a little more honest that the "state" (in whatever form it might take) is the owner capturing value - and you just hope that the state is doing good things for you, and will take care of you.
In practice though, I think our society is regressing to similar outcomes that were experienced in communist/socialist countries (not good), but the owner capturing value happens to be a corporate entity. Which is functionally not all that different from "the state", it's just even more honest that it has no real obligation to society at large. They carry obligations to their employees and shareholders, but not much else. In theory - they also have obligations to the government, but that requires that the government be functional and powerful enough to enforce that obligation. I think we're seeing that control slip (and not for the first time - robber barons was the term we coined last time it happened).
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But to your point - it's not required to be a negative (in theory - socialism is great), I just have yet to see any case where it doesn't immediately devolve into abuse (see pretty much every communist country in history). It can still work out great for individuals if they happen to be on the right end of the deal, but it rarely works out for society at large.
I'd guess how much it bothers you is probably strongly dependent on how much you value individualism.
In some interesting ways - socialism is fairly close to the idea of "a person who cannot buy and outright own the tools needed for their work". Except the moral justification for that system is that the "owner" who is capturing the value is "all of us". Communism is also there, but it's a little more honest that the "state" (in whatever form it might take) is the owner capturing value - and you just hope that the state is doing good things for you, and will take care of you.
In practice though, I think our society is regressing to similar outcomes that were experienced in communist/socialist countries (not good), but the owner capturing value happens to be a corporate entity. Which is functionally not all that different from "the state", it's just even more honest that it has no real obligation to society at large. They carry obligations to their employees and shareholders, but not much else. In theory - they also have obligations to the government, but that requires that the government be functional and powerful enough to enforce that obligation. I think we're seeing that control slip (and not for the first time - robber barons was the term we coined last time it happened).
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But to your point - it's not required to be a negative (in theory - socialism is great), I just have yet to see any case where it doesn't immediately devolve into abuse (see pretty much every communist country in history). It can still work out great for individuals if they happen to be on the right end of the deal, but it rarely works out for society at large.
I'd guess how much it bothers you is probably strongly dependent on how much you value individualism.