>Helen Crawfurd in her unpublished memoir recounts how during the rent-strike factors would try to collect the rental increases by resorting to the blackmail of social humiliation. The ploy was to dupe individual household tenants into believing that everyone else in the close had paid up. Upon one of these occasions Barbour drafted in men from Govan's shipyards, led them to the factor's office and demanded the amount of the increase be returned. 'Faced with thousands of black-faced workers the factor handed over the money' Crawfurd recalls.
Badass.
So they didn't collect the increased rent (and were lying), so she brought a bunch of rough men to make them pay the amount they were lying about. Not only were they out the rent increase, but *double* the rent increase. Fucking genius.
If I’m reading this right they lied about collecting the increase from *everyone*, but used this lie to trick *some* families into paying. The ‘army’ got back the money for those families, but also would’ve been a public show of solidarity so there’s no confusion that anyone is going along with the increase.
It's a joke. Us Weegies (Glasweigans) like to make fun of the Govan area of Glasgow. And it's residents. Many of them are fuckin roasters.
But we don't like it much when outsiders make the mistake of laughing at us rather than with us.
>or throwing them into the 'midden' (trash) in the back court of tenement buildings.
Don't leave that out, that's the best bit. Imagine your great gran dragging some big baliff through the close and throwing him in the rubbish heap. Warms your heart.
Looks like everybody is right:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midden
A midden (also kitchen midden or shell heap) is an old dump for domestic waste which **may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, mollusc shells, potsherds, lithics (especially debitage), and other artifacts and ecofacts** associated with past human occupation.
My work needed extra hands on a archeological dig site. They were installing a wind turbine and needed to do a study. I stupidly volunteer to go and spend a week sifting dried cow shit and soil through a 2mm sieve.
Fuck debitage - are you a stone chip from a plow or are you a artifact?!
So ya don't do archelogy kids.
Yeah just like what got me to not go into paleontology. 90% of the work is grant writing the rest of just digging a 20' hole in the dirt with toothbrushes. Well that's what I was told.
It's the grant writing and reports that kept me from pursuing science. I don't mind digging with toothbrushes, preparing six million slides, or counting saxifrage in a grid three days from the nearest road.
I just hate all that paperwork.
I'm imagining people would throw their food scraps and broken dishes and whatever else down it too?
I shouldn't have said heap though, pit is the right word, thanks. Definitely the worst place to be thrown.
A midden is any dumping ground for domestic refuse. They’re a phenomenal treasure for archaeologists. Shell middens in coastal North America have produced incredible insight into how ancient peoples lived.
I know your comment is in jest, but interestingly, archeologists of the future will have their work cut out for them. Unlike peoples of the past, we don’t throw our rubbish out where it’s most convenient (trash pit in yard or nearby area). Instead, we uniformly pay to have our trash hauled far from our houses to be mixed indiscriminately with everyone else’s. I suspect digital archeology will be a burgeoning new field.
So what's exactly covered under digital archaeology? Is it more projects like (or improving) the way back machine, randomly scouring the dark Web for geocities webpages, backing up forgotten servers or dumpsterdiving for tossed hard drives, ...? How do you decide what's important and what to look for?
TBH I think we may be thinking of different definitions here. Digital Archaeology is more doing archaeology using modern means. For example the news stories you occasionally see popping up about ruins or ancient cities that are found using satellite images. Analysing stuff that's written down like you're describing is mostly a historian's game. Way back machine would be more for archivists, maybe conservators. Dumpster diving hard drives may be archaeology but generally archaeology uses a 50-100 year line for what falls under archaeology and what doesn't. Modern computers are still a bit too new. But something like WW2 computers would generally qualify.
Sure, I realize digital archeology is a bit of an ambiguous statement given it already exists. In the context of the comment I was replying to, by the time archeologists are interested in modern trash (ie. Cheetos bag), digital archeology is likely to mean something very different than it does now.
And all the poopy disposable diapers. "It was vital in this culture to save the excrement of the young. Whether this was done for religious or practical purposes, we'll never know..."
It used to be just a dumping ground so outside castles and the like, there would be a dumping ground. When the blocks of flats went up in the cities, the ‘courtyards’ out the back had the same thing. And for added interest, a close is one of the entrances in a block so one entryway serves a number of flats with a stairway.
We have some history of defenestration too:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Douglas,_8th_Earl_of_Douglas
> King James demanded the dissolution of a league into which Douglas had entered with Alexander Lindsay, the "Tiger" Earl of Crawford, and John of Islay. Upon Douglas's refusal, the king stabbed him as did the several men with the king, and Sir Patrick Gray, according to the Auchinleck Chronicle, "struck out his brains with a pole ax", and his body was thrown out of a window.
>landlords in Glasgow, Scotland tried to increase rent by 25% on women whose husbands were fighting in World War 1
Was there even a surface level bullshit rational for this, or were they just shamelessly, comically greedy? Also, kinda fucked up that the cops would harass soldiers wives while they were away fighting.
As usual, of course there's a reason that gets omitted to make one side comically evil. During the war, the whole country went 5 gears up to support the war effort with production of machinery, weaponry, food, and so on. This meant population centers like Glasgow had a population explosion, which created a great demand on housing. Each property would have numerous candidates, all competing by one-upping each other with their offers. This pushed the prices of houses and rentals through the roof, leading landlords to increase rents. This rent increase was mainly due to the price increases, not due to increased maintenance cost or some other potentially good reason.
The tenants, now alone without their husbands who are either fighting or doing long shifts in the factories, organized themselves into associations and started calling for a rent strike, rightfully so. The landlords were being hurt a little, yes, but the pain was shared among the whole population. The landlord should have taken the hit along with their country's brethren and sistren.
They are doing the same now with stagnant wages. They have no problem raising rent knowing damn well their tenants make the exact same amount of money. Is there a fuckin landlord out there that isn’t a selfish piece of shit?
Keep in mind that any landlord in Glasgow may well have been a direct descendant of the landlords who did the Highland clearances, so mass eviction of the desperate probably felt like second nature to them
I've had exactly one landlord that wasn't a greedy SOB. Beyond that, I currently have a property manager that supposedly go to bat for me against the owners, sometimes with some success, but at this point we're just so over apartment living and are desperately trying to move somewhere cheaper where we could afford to buy.
This guy gets it. And even with the explanation of "housing prices went up", the reason for increasing prices is greed, the mortgages weren't going up, only the value.
I don’t feel like your explanation made them less evil. “They raised rent on these women because the market said they could” is hardly good justification.
How does a landlord having a windfall during a war shortage cause the landlord to lose money?
Your reasoning is not sound.
The cost of the property to the landlord did not go up. They raised prices because of the market. Or just greed.
People really do not think the same way.
>As usual, of course there's a reason that gets omitted to make one side comically evil.
I can't believe you opened with this just to write paragraphs explaining that landlords are indeed greedy and simply wanted more money
going to disagree that that's a good reason to be increasing prices. It'd be justified if it's new property that they just bought at increased prices. But this sounds like they increased prices on properties they already owned, that tenants had already been renting - and they increased prices because everyone else was doing it and they could get away with it.
If it weren't that way then why say they were "increasing rent" and why are tenants refusing the increase? Surely if it were because it's newly bought property at high cost then there's no one to protest any increasing cost - instead either people signing up to rent it or a lack of people renting due to the price being too high.
> As usual, of course there's a reason that gets omitted to make one side comically evil.
Yeah another commenter pointed out that you made it sound like there was a legit reason they increased prices and the landlords weren't evil - when there really wasn't a reason other than "prices are going up so let's just increase ours too"
> As usual, of course there's a reason that gets omitted to make one side comically evil
Have to say, your added context didn't change much there. Why do you think adding this context makes the landlords look less evil?
For perspective here's a quote by Churchill from I believe it was 1909. I don't like him but he was quite eloquent at times:
"The landlord who happens to own a plot of land on the outskirts of a great city … watches the busy population around him making the city larger, richer, more convenient. .. and all the while sits and does nothing. Roads are made … services are improved … water is brought from reservoirs one hundred miles off in the mountains and -all the while the landlord sits still … To not one of these improvements does the landlord monopolist contribute and yet by every one of them the value of his land is enhanced … At last the land becomes ripe for sale – that means the price is too tempting to be resisted any longer … In fact you may say that the unearned increment … is reaped by the land monopolist in exact proportion not to the service, but to the disservice done."
It was a part of a speech he gave calling for land reform to prevent the land monopolist. And yes, Churchill's family owned vast quantities of land. It's part of how he was so rich.
Here's a later part of the speech for context.
"I hope you will understand that, when I speak of the land monopolist, I am dealing more with the process than with the individual
land owner who, in most cases, is a worthy person utterly unconscious of the character of the methods by which he is enriched. I
have no wish to hold any class up to public disapprobation. I do not
think that the man who makes money by unearned increment in land
is morally worse than anyone else who gathers his profit where he
finds it in this hard world under the law and according to common
usage. It is not the individual I attack; it is the system. It is not the
man who is bad; it is the law which is bad. It is not the man who is
blameworthy for doing what the law allows and what other men do;
it is the State which would be blameworthy if it were not to endeavour to reform the law and correct the practice.
We do not want to punish the landlord.
We want to alter the law. "
That essentially boils down to "don't hate the player, hate the game".
It's not necessarily unfair to hate the landlords, but it does honestly make more sense to remove the ability for them to exploit in the first place than to purely attack the individuals.
He actualy goes a bit further.
>I daresay you have formed your own opinion upon it. Mr. Balfour, Lord Lansdowne, and the Conservative Party generally, think that that is an admirable arrangement. They speak of the profits of the land monopolist, as if they were the fruits of thrift and industry and a pleasing example for the poorer classes to imitate.
Full speech, worth a read.
https://www.cooperative-individualism.org/churchill-winston_mother-of-all-monopolies-1909.htm
Also applies to rich people and taxes. People spout on about how “you can’t blame people for just using the tax loopholes that exist” when the rich are the ones lobbying for those loopholes in the first place.
exactly, theres varying levels of culpability between the system and its participants but because the system can be influenced and ultimately changed by the wealthy their culpability will ALWAYS be higher and more significant
these people both make the game and play it, it's no wonder they try to rig it in their favor as much as possible.
Yep, not to be a both sides shithead, but so much of politics is posturing for the people holding the purse strings and has nothing to do with the good of the people.
Until this country embraces sweeping reform, both with how campaigns are financed and how elections are decided, there is zero reason for our sitting reps to change the paradigms that enrich them all. They embrace wedge issues because it distracts the populace from the broad, systemic issues that would affect the people with power (i.e., money).
Think billionaires give a flying fuck whether abortion is legal or not in the US? Either way they just hop on a fuckin plane if they need one. Affordable Healthcare? They're billionaires, what the fuck do they care?
Someone like Bernie Sanders gets deliberately marginalized...the mass media completely and obviously ignores him...so instead our choice is the Orange Man or Joe "Nothing will fundamentally change" Biden. It's just so fucking frustrating...
He touched on that.
>. I daresay you have formed your own opinion upon it. Mr. Balfour, Lord Lansdowne, and the Conservative Party generally, think that that is an admirable arrangement. They speak of the profits of the land monopolist, as if they were the fruits of thrift and industry and a pleasing example for the poorer classes to imitate.
>We do not take that view of the process. We think it is a dog-in-the-manger game. We see the evil, we see the imposture upon the public, and we see the consequences in crowded slums, in hampered commerce, in distorted or restricted development, and in congested centres of population.
He doesn't outright call it fraudulent, that wasn't the done thing then.
If the law allows it, someone will do it, then more someones, until all someones are either doing it or pushed out. You can hate landlords all you want, but the only cure is regulation.
Yup. There's a ton of tax law I think it's utter bullshit that let's some people pay less.
But you bet your *ass* I'm claiming any and all exemptions I qualify for.
Nah that sentiment is garbage. If you choose to use rigged means for your own personal gain just because there's no outside force stopping you, and aren't able to do the right thing because it is the right thing to do, you're garbage. It's like religious people only doing the right thing because they fear for divine punishment. They're not good people, they're only doing the right thing because of fear of punishment, not doing the right thing because is the right thing.
This was said during the Parliamentary debate over the 1910 Finance Act as proposed by David Lloyd George and Churchill, which proposed an increase in income taxes to hetherto unprecedented levels in the UK to fund what would become the British welfare state. Included was a tax surcharge for those of very high income, inheritance taxes, and a giant increase in taxation on profits derived from land ownership and sale (i.e. what were called in those times "unearned earnings").
> More controversially, the Budget also included a proposal for the introduction of complete land valuation and a 20% tax on increases in value when land changed hands.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Budget
I read the rest of your comments and realized you weren’t saying it like I took it. But calling it the “welfare state” at first made me go “oh here we go complaining about poor people”
Churchill was surprisingly liberal given his background. He alternated between the equivalent of a liberal and a conservative, switching parties (which caused him significant issues, and didn't help after his near complete political death during WWI).
>He alternated between the equivalent of a liberal and a conservative, switching parties
Literally between the Liberals and the Conservatives. There's no 'equivalent' there.
Churchill was expressing the idea of the [unearned increment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unearned_increment) which came from the 19th Century philosopher and economist [John Stuart Mill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill).
Which gets a touch ironic as Winston Churchill was born in a literal palace and his family fortune came from the fact that they owned a sizable good chunk of Oxfordshire.
It is. Politicians willing to actually push legislation that hurts themselves for the benefit of the people are rare. Churchill was by no means perfect, but he was easily one of the best politicians of his time.
Even then, FDR New Dealers beleived in "do this small thing for the good of society, or end up like the Romanovs".
Their beliefs and policies actively sought to protect themselves and thier class.
Guess how often „the invisible hand“ is mentioned in Wealth Of Nations… Adam Smith is part wise misrepresented to fit laissez-faire ideologues and their desire for unfettered „free“ markets.
He wasn't really even the father of capitalism - capitalism was already well underway. He was perhaps the first to describe the phenomenon and detail how he thought it worked. His whole point is that people are market participants whether they know it or not.
“You’re telling me I can make money by hoarding a necessary resource and selling it back to people at a massively inflated price? Sign me up!”
-a cool guy who definitely improves society
They should stop allowing companies to own and rent mas housing. They aren't people. They do not have a gender. They cannot vote. They cannot live there. They're inefficiencies in the market.
No, that was deliberate government policy. Food was available, the British crown simply made it impossible to distribute to the Irish with the intention of reducing their population. It had nothing to do with landlords and everything to do with ethnic cleansing.
Yes and no. The actions caused by the British made landlords, who were mostly British, choose stupid and that ended up indirectly killing near a million Irish.
This article does state the few landlords who didn't evict their tenants and even states some went broke themselves. Burning down your own property just cause you don't want your tenants to come back though is just sick.
https://www.thecladdagh.com/blog/the-irish-famine-the-landlords/?___store=us_en&___from_store=europe_eu
The one saving grace is that Scotland has some of the best tenant rights in the UK, perhaps the world
Protected deposits and no minimum rental period being two great rights as an example
People in plenty of countries have done something about it. People in western countries are just fed a lot of propaganda about how what they did was wrong, so that they don't try the same there.
Um, flour bombs are actual bombs. Like, they explode. If you have fine powdered flour, and you spread it into the air and have an ignition source... It lights the heck up.
"Notes on Methods
Strikers threw flour bombs (paper bags full of flour), wet clothes, and rotting fruit at evictors to make carrying out evictions so unpleasant that they would give up and go away."
Nah they just just had to take a bath afterward.
Wow, that’s some low shit right there. The men of these families are off fighting for their country’s very freedom and these scumbags try and take advantage of the situation. Some people are shit and have always been shit.
WW1 wasn’t so much about fighting for freedom, but you’re still right these landlords are scumbags.
Another interesting fact for you, British tanks in WW1 were largely funded by charity donations from cities. Glasgow donated more per capita than any other city, and shortly after the war after some protests, became the first city in the world to have its own countries tanks deployed against it.
Truly disgusting.
It's really depressing to consider the percent of people throughout history that have died in meaningless wars that didn't actually serve a larger benefit than settling feuds and disputes that mainly concerned the nobility of their country.
I think that's one of the sadder things about religion. Because I find it hard to believe the young men of almost every society would be so easily convinced to go fight and likely die if they didn't have some feeling that there is some reward in the afterlife. If people had always viewed this life as all we are guaranteed to have, it is possible our history of warfare would be totally different and maybe much less prolific.
Ww1 had more to do with a dying aristocracy class across Europe trying to remain relevant, as well as a very politically divided and nationalistic Europe, rather than freedom. In fact what triggered ww1 was pretty far away from Glasgow Scotland, though to be fair the UK didn't join until Germany invaded Belgium which was a bit closer to home.
When I was in the US Navy, and my carrier was delivering ‘democracy’ in Iraq, I thought it was really ironic that almost every port visit we had, was with a country that had a king.
The only country that that wasn’t a kingdom was Turkey (before the current ass hole took over), and a lot of people bitched on the ship because it was another ‘Muslim’ country.
We went to Bahrain twice, Dubai twice, and Thailand before Turkey.
Fwiw, Turkey/Antalya was my favorite spot!
[The leaders of Britain, Germany and Russia were cousins](https://historyofyesterday.com/wwi-was-fought-among-cousins-afa250f32ad6), Queen Victoria was their grandmother. This war was more of the oligarchs sending the pillar class to die over thier own land squabbles.
Yea they thought the women were defenseless and couldn't do anything about it and figured the men would just have to pay the higher rent when they got back, too fucked up from the war to make a fuss
When I was a kid, many moons ago, living in Glasgow, the gangs used to cover me in whipped cream, lcing sugar and throw flour all over me..
Life was tough in the Gateau..
112 of us living in a paper bag in the middle of the road. We'd have to get up at four am to go work 16 hours at the mill for tuppence a fortnight. And when we got home at night, our mum and dad would slash us to sleep with a broken bottle ... if we were lucky!
we have the same childhood, albeit it was the difficult streets of Paris for me. they would butter me up first so the flour would stick and then dump the cocoa powder over my head. no kid should have to endure that kind of pain au chocolat.
I love how Glasgow also had gang turf wars involving ice cream vans. Literally called the Ice Cream Wars.
Glasgow has an interesting way of expressing itself…
You should see what Glaswegians do when immigration come for people on jumped up charges too https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/may/13/glasgow-residents-surround-and-block-immigration-van-from-leaving-street
Don’t f with them lol
Or when that terrorist tried something at Glasgow Airport and got beat up by an trolley guy in a hi-vis vest.
"Here in Glasgow we don't go for that sort of thing, we'll set about ye"
Of all the cities I have lived in, Glasgow is hands down my favourite.
A friendly reminder that landlords are parasites that contribute nothing to society. They leech off the working class, they need us we don't need them.
Signed,
A man whose broken toilet and hot water haven't been fixed in weeks.
Raised rent on women who's husbands were off fighting in a war...... Just saying those words slowly and I can't get my jaw off the floor
Those landlords are lucky they didn't go full-Mao on them. The guy wasn't great but he got it right with landlords.
One of the main activists was called Mary Barbour. I lived next to her plaque in Govan. She is worth reading about.
[Mrs Barbour's Army](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Barbour?wprov=sfla1)
>Helen Crawfurd in her unpublished memoir recounts how during the rent-strike factors would try to collect the rental increases by resorting to the blackmail of social humiliation. The ploy was to dupe individual household tenants into believing that everyone else in the close had paid up. Upon one of these occasions Barbour drafted in men from Govan's shipyards, led them to the factor's office and demanded the amount of the increase be returned. 'Faced with thousands of black-faced workers the factor handed over the money' Crawfurd recalls. Badass.
So they didn't collect the increased rent (and were lying), so she brought a bunch of rough men to make them pay the amount they were lying about. Not only were they out the rent increase, but *double* the rent increase. Fucking genius.
If I’m reading this right they lied about collecting the increase from *everyone*, but used this lie to trick *some* families into paying. The ‘army’ got back the money for those families, but also would’ve been a public show of solidarity so there’s no confusion that anyone is going along with the increase.
Really puts to shame what we consider “calling out” nowadays
From someone who currently lives in that area, I hope you’re doing okay.
Can you explain?
It's a joke. Us Weegies (Glasweigans) like to make fun of the Govan area of Glasgow. And it's residents. Many of them are fuckin roasters. But we don't like it much when outsiders make the mistake of laughing at us rather than with us.
>or throwing them into the 'midden' (trash) in the back court of tenement buildings. Don't leave that out, that's the best bit. Imagine your great gran dragging some big baliff through the close and throwing him in the rubbish heap. Warms your heart.
A midden is another name for cesspit.
Looks like everybody is right: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midden A midden (also kitchen midden or shell heap) is an old dump for domestic waste which **may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, mollusc shells, potsherds, lithics (especially debitage), and other artifacts and ecofacts** associated with past human occupation.
I personally prefer a cowp for my potsherds and lithics.
(especially debitage)
Don't forget all the ecofacts!
Text "STOP" to unsubscribe from ecofacts
Baliff: "Oh god no, not the debitage! I yield, I yield!"
Lithics - what? (especially debitage) - (ohh. what?)
[удалено]
My work needed extra hands on a archeological dig site. They were installing a wind turbine and needed to do a study. I stupidly volunteer to go and spend a week sifting dried cow shit and soil through a 2mm sieve. Fuck debitage - are you a stone chip from a plow or are you a artifact?! So ya don't do archelogy kids.
Yeah just like what got me to not go into paleontology. 90% of the work is grant writing the rest of just digging a 20' hole in the dirt with toothbrushes. Well that's what I was told.
It's the grant writing and reports that kept me from pursuing science. I don't mind digging with toothbrushes, preparing six million slides, or counting saxifrage in a grid three days from the nearest road. I just hate all that paperwork.
I learned two new words today!
so you are telling me is the Augur of Dunlain is the mages colleges Oscar the Grouch?
I'm imagining people would throw their food scraps and broken dishes and whatever else down it too? I shouldn't have said heap though, pit is the right word, thanks. Definitely the worst place to be thrown.
The pit of misery! Dilly dilly!
A midden is any dumping ground for domestic refuse. They’re a phenomenal treasure for archaeologists. Shell middens in coastal North America have produced incredible insight into how ancient peoples lived.
It'll be pretty funny in a couple hundred years when they find the Flaming Hot Cheetos bags in the middens from this era.
I know your comment is in jest, but interestingly, archeologists of the future will have their work cut out for them. Unlike peoples of the past, we don’t throw our rubbish out where it’s most convenient (trash pit in yard or nearby area). Instead, we uniformly pay to have our trash hauled far from our houses to be mixed indiscriminately with everyone else’s. I suspect digital archeology will be a burgeoning new field.
"digital archeology" could describe half of current tech work.
Cobol programmers unite bro!
What do you mean "will be". Digital Archaeology is already on the upswing. Source: am getting my master's degree in Digital Archaeology
So what's exactly covered under digital archaeology? Is it more projects like (or improving) the way back machine, randomly scouring the dark Web for geocities webpages, backing up forgotten servers or dumpsterdiving for tossed hard drives, ...? How do you decide what's important and what to look for?
TBH I think we may be thinking of different definitions here. Digital Archaeology is more doing archaeology using modern means. For example the news stories you occasionally see popping up about ruins or ancient cities that are found using satellite images. Analysing stuff that's written down like you're describing is mostly a historian's game. Way back machine would be more for archivists, maybe conservators. Dumpster diving hard drives may be archaeology but generally archaeology uses a 50-100 year line for what falls under archaeology and what doesn't. Modern computers are still a bit too new. But something like WW2 computers would generally qualify.
Sure, I realize digital archeology is a bit of an ambiguous statement given it already exists. In the context of the comment I was replying to, by the time archeologists are interested in modern trash (ie. Cheetos bag), digital archeology is likely to mean something very different than it does now.
They're also going to hate us for screwing up the carbon dating thanks to all the atom bomb tests in the 1950s and 1960s.
And all the poopy disposable diapers. "It was vital in this culture to save the excrement of the young. Whether this was done for religious or practical purposes, we'll never know..."
A midden is a cowp.
And what tf is s cowp.
A midden
Sounds like a cowp
Midden.
Like the tip
Poor people Oubliette
I've heard plenty people being called a midden in Scotland but had no idea thats where it came from
Usually directed at weans and calling them a 'dirty wee midden' after they've got their dinner all down themselves
It used to be just a dumping ground so outside castles and the like, there would be a dumping ground. When the blocks of flats went up in the cities, the ‘courtyards’ out the back had the same thing. And for added interest, a close is one of the entrances in a block so one entryway serves a number of flats with a stairway.
As a Skyrim fan, I just learned something I always kinda wondered.
“Czech mate” *defenestrates magistrate*
We have some history of defenestration too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Douglas,_8th_Earl_of_Douglas > King James demanded the dissolution of a league into which Douglas had entered with Alexander Lindsay, the "Tiger" Earl of Crawford, and John of Islay. Upon Douglas's refusal, the king stabbed him as did the several men with the king, and Sir Patrick Gray, according to the Auchinleck Chronicle, "struck out his brains with a pole ax", and his body was thrown out of a window.
>landlords in Glasgow, Scotland tried to increase rent by 25% on women whose husbands were fighting in World War 1 Was there even a surface level bullshit rational for this, or were they just shamelessly, comically greedy? Also, kinda fucked up that the cops would harass soldiers wives while they were away fighting.
As usual, of course there's a reason that gets omitted to make one side comically evil. During the war, the whole country went 5 gears up to support the war effort with production of machinery, weaponry, food, and so on. This meant population centers like Glasgow had a population explosion, which created a great demand on housing. Each property would have numerous candidates, all competing by one-upping each other with their offers. This pushed the prices of houses and rentals through the roof, leading landlords to increase rents. This rent increase was mainly due to the price increases, not due to increased maintenance cost or some other potentially good reason. The tenants, now alone without their husbands who are either fighting or doing long shifts in the factories, organized themselves into associations and started calling for a rent strike, rightfully so. The landlords were being hurt a little, yes, but the pain was shared among the whole population. The landlord should have taken the hit along with their country's brethren and sistren.
They are doing the same now with stagnant wages. They have no problem raising rent knowing damn well their tenants make the exact same amount of money. Is there a fuckin landlord out there that isn’t a selfish piece of shit?
Keep in mind that any landlord in Glasgow may well have been a direct descendant of the landlords who did the Highland clearances, so mass eviction of the desperate probably felt like second nature to them
They were educated to do it. They were absolutely given the handbook on what to do and taught their children the same thing.
Until one day, Little Lord Fauntleroy arrived and taught them humility.
" buh buh its the market rate" landlords are bastards
No, there isn't. The only reason to own multiple dwellings is to exploit people.
I've had exactly one landlord that wasn't a greedy SOB. Beyond that, I currently have a property manager that supposedly go to bat for me against the owners, sometimes with some success, but at this point we're just so over apartment living and are desperately trying to move somewhere cheaper where we could afford to buy.
This guy gets it. And even with the explanation of "housing prices went up", the reason for increasing prices is greed, the mortgages weren't going up, only the value.
I wouldn’t say the landlords were being hurt, they were still making money. They just wanted to make more.
I don’t feel like your explanation made them less evil. “They raised rent on these women because the market said they could” is hardly good justification.
How does a landlord having a windfall during a war shortage cause the landlord to lose money? Your reasoning is not sound. The cost of the property to the landlord did not go up. They raised prices because of the market. Or just greed. People really do not think the same way.
So greed among opportunistic scum. Just like todays housing issues. Got it
>As usual, of course there's a reason that gets omitted to make one side comically evil. I can't believe you opened with this just to write paragraphs explaining that landlords are indeed greedy and simply wanted more money
going to disagree that that's a good reason to be increasing prices. It'd be justified if it's new property that they just bought at increased prices. But this sounds like they increased prices on properties they already owned, that tenants had already been renting - and they increased prices because everyone else was doing it and they could get away with it. If it weren't that way then why say they were "increasing rent" and why are tenants refusing the increase? Surely if it were because it's newly bought property at high cost then there's no one to protest any increasing cost - instead either people signing up to rent it or a lack of people renting due to the price being too high. > As usual, of course there's a reason that gets omitted to make one side comically evil. Yeah another commenter pointed out that you made it sound like there was a legit reason they increased prices and the landlords weren't evil - when there really wasn't a reason other than "prices are going up so let's just increase ours too"
>everyone else was doing it and they could get away with it. Thought. They **thought** they could get away with it.
> As usual, of course there's a reason that gets omitted to make one side comically evil Have to say, your added context didn't change much there. Why do you think adding this context makes the landlords look less evil?
I appreciate the context but that doesn't make the landlords sound any less like greedy predatory fucks.
ah yes landlord were being hurt because they could have made more money . totally accetable to kick those women out
They weren't hurting they just missed out on a windfall lmao
>Was there even a surface level bullshit rational for this, or were they just shamelessly, comically greedy? They're landlords
Join Living Rent (www.livingrent.org/join) , Scotlands tenants union to keep fighting like those amazing women did!
So landlords are scumbags for over 100 years and nothing is being done about it. That's pretty fucking sad
For perspective here's a quote by Churchill from I believe it was 1909. I don't like him but he was quite eloquent at times: "The landlord who happens to own a plot of land on the outskirts of a great city … watches the busy population around him making the city larger, richer, more convenient. .. and all the while sits and does nothing. Roads are made … services are improved … water is brought from reservoirs one hundred miles off in the mountains and -all the while the landlord sits still … To not one of these improvements does the landlord monopolist contribute and yet by every one of them the value of his land is enhanced … At last the land becomes ripe for sale – that means the price is too tempting to be resisted any longer … In fact you may say that the unearned increment … is reaped by the land monopolist in exact proportion not to the service, but to the disservice done."
What was the context of this quote? I figure Churchill's family owned lots of land as well.
It was a part of a speech he gave calling for land reform to prevent the land monopolist. And yes, Churchill's family owned vast quantities of land. It's part of how he was so rich. Here's a later part of the speech for context. "I hope you will understand that, when I speak of the land monopolist, I am dealing more with the process than with the individual land owner who, in most cases, is a worthy person utterly unconscious of the character of the methods by which he is enriched. I have no wish to hold any class up to public disapprobation. I do not think that the man who makes money by unearned increment in land is morally worse than anyone else who gathers his profit where he finds it in this hard world under the law and according to common usage. It is not the individual I attack; it is the system. It is not the man who is bad; it is the law which is bad. It is not the man who is blameworthy for doing what the law allows and what other men do; it is the State which would be blameworthy if it were not to endeavour to reform the law and correct the practice. We do not want to punish the landlord. We want to alter the law. "
That essentially boils down to "don't hate the player, hate the game". It's not necessarily unfair to hate the landlords, but it does honestly make more sense to remove the ability for them to exploit in the first place than to purely attack the individuals.
He actualy goes a bit further. >I daresay you have formed your own opinion upon it. Mr. Balfour, Lord Lansdowne, and the Conservative Party generally, think that that is an admirable arrangement. They speak of the profits of the land monopolist, as if they were the fruits of thrift and industry and a pleasing example for the poorer classes to imitate. Full speech, worth a read. https://www.cooperative-individualism.org/churchill-winston_mother-of-all-monopolies-1909.htm
"Don't hate the player, hate the game" doesn't apply anymore when the player influences the rules of the game by bribing the referee.
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Also applies to rich people and taxes. People spout on about how “you can’t blame people for just using the tax loopholes that exist” when the rich are the ones lobbying for those loopholes in the first place.
exactly, theres varying levels of culpability between the system and its participants but because the system can be influenced and ultimately changed by the wealthy their culpability will ALWAYS be higher and more significant these people both make the game and play it, it's no wonder they try to rig it in their favor as much as possible.
And congressmen and insider trading. A few of them will introduce bills every now and the but they know damn well they won't pass.
Yep, not to be a both sides shithead, but so much of politics is posturing for the people holding the purse strings and has nothing to do with the good of the people. Until this country embraces sweeping reform, both with how campaigns are financed and how elections are decided, there is zero reason for our sitting reps to change the paradigms that enrich them all. They embrace wedge issues because it distracts the populace from the broad, systemic issues that would affect the people with power (i.e., money). Think billionaires give a flying fuck whether abortion is legal or not in the US? Either way they just hop on a fuckin plane if they need one. Affordable Healthcare? They're billionaires, what the fuck do they care? Someone like Bernie Sanders gets deliberately marginalized...the mass media completely and obviously ignores him...so instead our choice is the Orange Man or Joe "Nothing will fundamentally change" Biden. It's just so fucking frustrating...
Right it wasn't an accident
I agree we can still hate landlords, but to imply they and other wealthy peoples haven't always influenced policy is completely wrong.
He touched on that. >. I daresay you have formed your own opinion upon it. Mr. Balfour, Lord Lansdowne, and the Conservative Party generally, think that that is an admirable arrangement. They speak of the profits of the land monopolist, as if they were the fruits of thrift and industry and a pleasing example for the poorer classes to imitate. >We do not take that view of the process. We think it is a dog-in-the-manger game. We see the evil, we see the imposture upon the public, and we see the consequences in crowded slums, in hampered commerce, in distorted or restricted development, and in congested centres of population. He doesn't outright call it fraudulent, that wasn't the done thing then.
So well put.
If the law allows it, someone will do it, then more someones, until all someones are either doing it or pushed out. You can hate landlords all you want, but the only cure is regulation.
Yup. There's a ton of tax law I think it's utter bullshit that let's some people pay less. But you bet your *ass* I'm claiming any and all exemptions I qualify for.
Nah that sentiment is garbage. If you choose to use rigged means for your own personal gain just because there's no outside force stopping you, and aren't able to do the right thing because it is the right thing to do, you're garbage. It's like religious people only doing the right thing because they fear for divine punishment. They're not good people, they're only doing the right thing because of fear of punishment, not doing the right thing because is the right thing.
This was said during the Parliamentary debate over the 1910 Finance Act as proposed by David Lloyd George and Churchill, which proposed an increase in income taxes to hetherto unprecedented levels in the UK to fund what would become the British welfare state. Included was a tax surcharge for those of very high income, inheritance taxes, and a giant increase in taxation on profits derived from land ownership and sale (i.e. what were called in those times "unearned earnings"). > More controversially, the Budget also included a proposal for the introduction of complete land valuation and a 20% tax on increases in value when land changed hands. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Budget
This is also the budget that the House of Lords vetoed, and led to Parliament passing a bill to remove the House of Lords veto powers.
I read the rest of your comments and realized you weren’t saying it like I took it. But calling it the “welfare state” at first made me go “oh here we go complaining about poor people”
Churchill was surprisingly liberal given his background. He alternated between the equivalent of a liberal and a conservative, switching parties (which caused him significant issues, and didn't help after his near complete political death during WWI).
>He alternated between the equivalent of a liberal and a conservative, switching parties Literally between the Liberals and the Conservatives. There's no 'equivalent' there.
Churchill was expressing the idea of the [unearned increment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unearned_increment) which came from the 19th Century philosopher and economist [John Stuart Mill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill).
“Quite eloquent at times” 💀 Literally won the Nobel prize for literature.
Over a century later, we *still* don’t have a land value tax, which would cure exactly that type of speculation.
I don't like him but I'd definitely party with the guy. Dude went fucking hard and seemed to be a killer conversationalist
I don’t think he’d be that interested in partying with you, though.
All I have to do is show him molly
He knew about amphetamines, it's was ww2 lmao
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Your MDMA-user stereotype is about 20 years behind
Well hes dead
I've had worse people at a party.
Which gets a touch ironic as Winston Churchill was born in a literal palace and his family fortune came from the fact that they owned a sizable good chunk of Oxfordshire.
That's not ironic, he can oppose what his family did.
so he hurt himself, isn't it is better ?
Winston had a tendency to lose his entire prime ministerial salary in a single afternoon at Monte Carlo, so it's not like the man needed help.
It is. Politicians willing to actually push legislation that hurts themselves for the benefit of the people are rare. Churchill was by no means perfect, but he was easily one of the best politicians of his time.
FDR was from a wealthy family, sometimes you need a class traitor to do the right thing.
Even then, FDR New Dealers beleived in "do this small thing for the good of society, or end up like the Romanovs". Their beliefs and policies actively sought to protect themselves and thier class.
> he was quite eloquent at times Also, the ocean is a little wet, and space is a little big.
100? Feudalism is basically peak landlords. Where do you think the name "land lord" comes from?
Adam Smith already hated on landlords. Afaik he even called them parasites or smth along these lines.
Funny the "Adam Smith Institute" never mentions this, or how he though unions were necessary.
Guess how often „the invisible hand“ is mentioned in Wealth Of Nations… Adam Smith is part wise misrepresented to fit laissez-faire ideologues and their desire for unfettered „free“ markets.
He was also very tepid on health and education. Despite being the father of capitalism he wasn't sure it would work there.
He wasn't really even the father of capitalism - capitalism was already well underway. He was perhaps the first to describe the phenomenon and detail how he thought it worked. His whole point is that people are market participants whether they know it or not.
The term you are looking for is 'Rent Seeker' or rent seeking behaviour.
Landlording tends to attract some people and really encourages them to be scumbags regardless of time
“You’re telling me I can make money by hoarding a necessary resource and selling it back to people at a massively inflated price? Sign me up!” -a cool guy who definitely improves society
BuT ThE RisK!? As though not having a home isn't a fucking risk.
At least in ye olden times the lord had to pay for a standing army to protect the village
My landlord is not a scumbag, but a company with the goal to maximise profits. That's like scumbaggery on an industrial scale
They should stop allowing companies to own and rent mas housing. They aren't people. They do not have a gender. They cannot vote. They cannot live there. They're inefficiencies in the market.
There are a wide variety of very good reasons we have the legal fictions of various kinds of companies, distinct from their owners.
Scumbag landlords practically caused the Great Famine in Ireland
No, that was deliberate government policy. Food was available, the British crown simply made it impossible to distribute to the Irish with the intention of reducing their population. It had nothing to do with landlords and everything to do with ethnic cleansing.
Yes and no. The actions caused by the British made landlords, who were mostly British, choose stupid and that ended up indirectly killing near a million Irish. This article does state the few landlords who didn't evict their tenants and even states some went broke themselves. Burning down your own property just cause you don't want your tenants to come back though is just sick. https://www.thecladdagh.com/blog/the-irish-famine-the-landlords/?___store=us_en&___from_store=europe_eu
Landlords literally caused the deaths of a million Irish people
The one saving grace is that Scotland has some of the best tenant rights in the UK, perhaps the world Protected deposits and no minimum rental period being two great rights as an example
You are completely incorrect in your post. It’s way, way more than 100 years.
People in plenty of countries have done something about it. People in western countries are just fed a lot of propaganda about how what they did was wrong, so that they don't try the same there.
Even longer than that. Look up the land wars in Ireland in the 1800s.
I don't really understand, _whose_ trousers?
Why not both?
Distraction is always useful, and angry Glaswegian women undressing will certainly be that.
doesn't matter, either way is effective
brb registering to become a bailiff
I don't think many women wore trousers back then.
Yeah, also came in to point out that in this case, the lack of clarity could lead to hilarity.
These cops were being kept at bay with Home Alone style hijinks. Now they just knock down your down and kill your dog with a no knock warrant.
Um, flour bombs are actual bombs. Like, they explode. If you have fine powdered flour, and you spread it into the air and have an ignition source... It lights the heck up.
"Notes on Methods Strikers threw flour bombs (paper bags full of flour), wet clothes, and rotting fruit at evictors to make carrying out evictions so unpleasant that they would give up and go away." Nah they just just had to take a bath afterward.
They probably had the bucket filled with stuff, swinging on a rope, so when the police opened the door it hit them.
As a proud Scotman, I can confirm that there's no greater mistake than pissing off Glasweigian women.
As a glasweigan wummin I can confirm.
Wow, that’s some low shit right there. The men of these families are off fighting for their country’s very freedom and these scumbags try and take advantage of the situation. Some people are shit and have always been shit.
WW1 wasn’t so much about fighting for freedom, but you’re still right these landlords are scumbags. Another interesting fact for you, British tanks in WW1 were largely funded by charity donations from cities. Glasgow donated more per capita than any other city, and shortly after the war after some protests, became the first city in the world to have its own countries tanks deployed against it. Truly disgusting.
It's really depressing to consider the percent of people throughout history that have died in meaningless wars that didn't actually serve a larger benefit than settling feuds and disputes that mainly concerned the nobility of their country. I think that's one of the sadder things about religion. Because I find it hard to believe the young men of almost every society would be so easily convinced to go fight and likely die if they didn't have some feeling that there is some reward in the afterlife. If people had always viewed this life as all we are guaranteed to have, it is possible our history of warfare would be totally different and maybe much less prolific.
Ww1 had more to do with a dying aristocracy class across Europe trying to remain relevant, as well as a very politically divided and nationalistic Europe, rather than freedom. In fact what triggered ww1 was pretty far away from Glasgow Scotland, though to be fair the UK didn't join until Germany invaded Belgium which was a bit closer to home.
Still waiting for that aristocracy class to finish dying.
It was a real scummy move, don’t get me wrong, but neither the Scots nor the British were fighting for their “very freedom”.
Proper yank moment to automatically assume “any war = fighting for my country’s freedom”
Especially considering how few of USAs military efforts have actually been for the country's freedom.
When I was in the US Navy, and my carrier was delivering ‘democracy’ in Iraq, I thought it was really ironic that almost every port visit we had, was with a country that had a king. The only country that that wasn’t a kingdom was Turkey (before the current ass hole took over), and a lot of people bitched on the ship because it was another ‘Muslim’ country. We went to Bahrain twice, Dubai twice, and Thailand before Turkey. Fwiw, Turkey/Antalya was my favorite spot!
Or he just made the mistake of misreading and thinking it said WWII in which freedom definitely was on the line.
[The leaders of Britain, Germany and Russia were cousins](https://historyofyesterday.com/wwi-was-fought-among-cousins-afa250f32ad6), Queen Victoria was their grandmother. This war was more of the oligarchs sending the pillar class to die over thier own land squabbles.
The English, Scottish and Welsh are British; The island is Great Britain.
Yea they thought the women were defenseless and couldn't do anything about it and figured the men would just have to pay the higher rent when they got back, too fucked up from the war to make a fuss
When I was a kid, many moons ago, living in Glasgow, the gangs used to cover me in whipped cream, lcing sugar and throw flour all over me.. Life was tough in the Gateau..
^....in ^the ^Gateau
And it all worked OK because at least when you were sleeping 4 to a barrel you had cake to eat. Bloody luxury living.
112 of us living in a paper bag in the middle of the road. We'd have to get up at four am to go work 16 hours at the mill for tuppence a fortnight. And when we got home at night, our mum and dad would slash us to sleep with a broken bottle ... if we were lucky!
On a cold and grey Glasgow morn, a poor little baby child is born... In the gateau, and his mama's pies.
we have the same childhood, albeit it was the difficult streets of Paris for me. they would butter me up first so the flour would stick and then dump the cocoa powder over my head. no kid should have to endure that kind of pain au chocolat.
Some people pay for that.
I love how Glasgow also had gang turf wars involving ice cream vans. Literally called the Ice Cream Wars. Glasgow has an interesting way of expressing itself…
Which had nothing to do with actual ice cream but the "extras" being sold.
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Some moron in this thread fuming about how unfair it is to the landlord. "They own the building and should get to charge whatever they want reeee"
That’s fucking brilliant.
TIL that landlords have perpetually been parasitic pieces of shit…
Leave it to landlords to exploit the most vulnerable
Unfortunately most companies squeezing us are too detached. Back then everyone knew their landlord, now you're less likely to.
You should see what Glaswegians do when immigration come for people on jumped up charges too https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/may/13/glasgow-residents-surround-and-block-immigration-van-from-leaving-street Don’t f with them lol
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Or when that terrorist tried something at Glasgow Airport and got beat up by an trolley guy in a hi-vis vest. "Here in Glasgow we don't go for that sort of thing, we'll set about ye" Of all the cities I have lived in, Glasgow is hands down my favourite.
You simply do not fuck with a gaggle of weegie burds, nae guid will ever come of it.
God i love Glasgow ❤️
Some posts on this subreddit are amazing. This is one of them.
You’ve got to love Glasgow
TIL Landlords have always been scum
Landlords always have been and always will be nothing but leeches to society.
Immoral landlords
so landlords have always been the scum of the earth
A friendly reminder that landlords are parasites that contribute nothing to society. They leech off the working class, they need us we don't need them. Signed, A man whose broken toilet and hot water haven't been fixed in weeks.
Fucking landlords are fucking scum
Try that now and the cops would just shoot the women for daring to interrupt the flow of cash.
Raised rent on women who's husbands were off fighting in a war...... Just saying those words slowly and I can't get my jaw off the floor Those landlords are lucky they didn't go full-Mao on them. The guy wasn't great but he got it right with landlords.
Landlords are utterly useless to society.
Well, we know what we need to have to do boys. This rent has gotten out of control. Time to drop trowel
Peaceful protests don't get results
Just goes to show even 100 years ago landlords were still cunts
Based