To elaborate on what @ShimmeringKoi@hexbear.net said, as a landlord they must collect rent. That is inherently an extractive and exploitative relationship and they can only extract rent with the implicit threat of violent removal from your home if you do not pay it. And the arm of the state with the monopoly on said violence is the police, ergo landlords are cops.
Sorry I still don’t get it. Cops embody the violent coercion that is needed to enforce contracts and laws. Laws determine how contracts are made and what penalties for breaking them. Contracts are a legal confabulation that serve several functions, probably most relevant is they are the mechanisms that makes property ownership possible, such as land. Landlords have the personal property “rights” as outlined in property law and defined by the contract. Cops enforce the laws and contracts with violence.
Cops can only be landlords if they own property and collect rents. Landlords don’t have the ability to use violence to enforce their property rights, they have to call the cops. They both occupy this weird class middle zone that is neither bourgeoisie nor worker: collecting rents doesn’t necessarily make one a capitalist, land isn’t really strictly capital; cops aren’t proletarian workers though at one time they may have been working class with nothing to sell but their labor. Both are crucial to underwriting liberal private property relations which is the basis for capitalist exploitation and the class rule that emanates from it. But landlords have a completely different relation to production than cops, so they don’t occupy the same class position.
I’m not debating and I’ll read or watch anything recommended to me. I’m also mostly interested in specific and correct formulations of class, I study a lot and have high standards. If this is one of those things that is more agitational than strictly correct, I can live with that but if there is a critical formulation that I’m missing, or if this is a paradigm that other leftists are using to help formulate their views then I would very much like to understand
Are cops just the ones on the beat, in uniform, harassing the unhoused, killing protestors or just innocent people caught in the gears of capital? I think most of us would say no, obviously not. There are also detectives and all manner of plain clothes officers, but there are also all the prosecutors, the judges, the DAs etc.
These are all surely also cops, right? After all, we call her Kopmala for a reason. So what about landlords then? Do they not slot neatly into this power structure? Are they not just a half step removed from that legitimized arm of violence that is the state enforcing property rights?
Can your landlord inspect your home? Can they decide on a whim to utilize that violent arm of the state to kick you out on the street if they feel that you are not adequately maintaining - or even better, improving - the value of their property?
In all of these ways the landlord is more of a cop than the DA or the judge.
I guess I don’t totally agree with calling everyone that exists within that weird administrative class “cops,” but it isn’t a critical disagreement. I get what you mean though, thanks for the explainer
To elaborate on what @ShimmeringKoi@hexbear.net said, as a landlord they must collect rent. That is inherently an extractive and exploitative relationship and they can only extract rent with the implicit threat of violent removal from your home if you do not pay it. And the arm of the state with the monopoly on said violence is the police, ergo landlords are cops.
Sorry I still don’t get it. Cops embody the violent coercion that is needed to enforce contracts and laws. Laws determine how contracts are made and what penalties for breaking them. Contracts are a legal confabulation that serve several functions, probably most relevant is they are the mechanisms that makes property ownership possible, such as land. Landlords have the personal property “rights” as outlined in property law and defined by the contract. Cops enforce the laws and contracts with violence.
Cops can only be landlords if they own property and collect rents. Landlords don’t have the ability to use violence to enforce their property rights, they have to call the cops. They both occupy this weird class middle zone that is neither bourgeoisie nor worker: collecting rents doesn’t necessarily make one a capitalist, land isn’t really strictly capital; cops aren’t proletarian workers though at one time they may have been working class with nothing to sell but their labor. Both are crucial to underwriting liberal private property relations which is the basis for capitalist exploitation and the class rule that emanates from it. But landlords have a completely different relation to production than cops, so they don’t occupy the same class position.
I’m not debating and I’ll read or watch anything recommended to me. I’m also mostly interested in specific and correct formulations of class, I study a lot and have high standards. If this is one of those things that is more agitational than strictly correct, I can live with that but if there is a critical formulation that I’m missing, or if this is a paradigm that other leftists are using to help formulate their views then I would very much like to understand
Sorry I am at work I’ll give you something meatier when I get home.
Take your time! I appreciate your willingness
Okay so what are cops?
Are cops just the ones on the beat, in uniform, harassing the unhoused, killing protestors or just innocent people caught in the gears of capital? I think most of us would say no, obviously not. There are also detectives and all manner of plain clothes officers, but there are also all the prosecutors, the judges, the DAs etc.
These are all surely also cops, right? After all, we call her Kopmala for a reason. So what about landlords then? Do they not slot neatly into this power structure? Are they not just a half step removed from that legitimized arm of violence that is the state enforcing property rights?
Can your landlord inspect your home? Can they decide on a whim to utilize that violent arm of the state to kick you out on the street if they feel that you are not adequately maintaining - or even better, improving - the value of their property?
In all of these ways the landlord is more of a cop than the DA or the judge.
Not all cops wear badges or uniforms.
I guess I don’t totally agree with calling everyone that exists within that weird administrative class “cops,” but it isn’t a critical disagreement. I get what you mean though, thanks for the explainer