A person who purchases property and rents it out to others for a living. Landlords earn a profit by charging people to live on land that they own.
Landlords are
controversial, and encountered renewed controversy in the late 2010s and early 2020s. Their controversy predates these years and even
the internet (despite what some claim), however, as exemplified by Mao Zedong's large-scale purging of them. Some argue that landlords provide an invaluable service to society by allowing individuals to live somewhere for a price cheaper than purchasing a property on their own. Renters typically do not have to do large-scale repairs, nor do they pay directly for the bills involved in the day-to-day managing of the property (although their rent goes toward it), however these things are at the discretion of the landlord.
Others argue that landlords do not provide a real service, and simply purchase properties that could be provided to others for a far smaller price or even none at all. Further, they argue, the fact that landlords own property that they usually do not live in only to charge others to live there means that their income relies on "
exploiting" those who need shelter.
In this sense, one's opinion on landlords serves as a marker for their view on the function of society at large, principally their view on the
economic system in which they currently live (which is usually
capitalism).
