I.R. Ybarra

RENTING, the collection of rents, and the relation of landlords and tenants are, respectively, among the most humiliating, vicious and deplorable interactions that the human race, to its sorrow, has devised. Landlordism provokes unhappiness everywhere, and yet this shameful abuse pervades society unabated. It is worthwhile to examine first, before undertaking the abbreviated economic analysis which I will offer, the purely psychological, moral, and physical degradations which are thrust upon both parties to these execrable transactions. With a view toward demolishing the feeble defenses which the apologists for landlordism usually offer, I intend to show that this practice not only adds to the unwanted, harrowing authoritarianism that pesters our society, but it promotes also ugliness, sloth, and despair.