I don’t know why you keep bringing up the word “ideal”. Marxists are opposed to idealism, we’re staunch materialists. Saying that “things change over time and place” doesn’t automatically negate historical examples , and following those historical examples doesn’t imply not achieving progressive victories over time.

You claim to follow the path that works, but that’s what the western left has been following for the past 50 years and look where that led us.

I’m glad you’re a human with empathy and good intentions, but tenants shouldn’t be in a position that their housing (one of the most fundamental rights of people) relies on the good will of whatever landlord they happen to be stuck with.

Why not though? The experiments done in housing nationalization have been extremely successful in abolishing homelessness and guaranteeing access to affordable housing. In Cuba, if you study in (completely free) public university, the state assigns you a flat at no cost. In the Soviet Union, housing used to cost 3% of monthly incomes back in the 1970s.

Imagine the possibilities that we could get with 50+ years of technological and industrial development if we nationalized housing in the west…

It’s not a utopia, housing has been nationalized successfully in several countries, with the result of the abolition of homelessness, extremely affordable rent (think 3% of monthly incomes), and evictions essentially not existing.

I’m all for revising zoning laws, enacting rent caps, and other transitional measures, but the end goal should be the collectivization of housing, which would eliminate the parasitism altogether.

I’m genuinely happy for you getting a good landlord, but access to housing shouldn’t be conditioned by being lucky to get a decent and altruistic landlord (a minority in people’s experience, hence the massive upvotes of the post).

I can think of a myriad of other reasons than sheer cost why I might not want to buy a home straight away

Me too and you make a great point. The problem isn’t with renting homes as a concept, it’s with renting from a private owner at market prices. Publicly owned housing for rent at maintenance cost-prices would eliminate the exploitative relationship and still allow people to rent for as long as they want.

Pretending that small landlords and corporate landlords are the same is like saying your local grocer is as bad as Walmart

Your comparison is valid, but it works against your interests. Your local grocer, as a business owner, is every bit against rising minimum wage as Walmart is: both of them see reduced profits when minimum wages are increased, so the class relations between them and their workers make them support anti-worker-rights policy.

In the same manner, your local landlord has every reason to be as opposed to measures such as rent caps or rent freezes as BlackRock.

Yes, rent should exist as an alternative to home ownership, but the housing for rent should be publicly owned and rented at maintenance-cost prices as has been done successfully in many socialist countries before which managed to abolish homelessness. As an example, by the 1970s rent in the Soviet Union costed about 3% of the monthly average income. Can’t we do better than that 55 years of technological progress later?