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nowyourdoingit t1_ism6j9m wrote

It's happened before with some success https://jewishcurrents.org/rent-strike

Striking and protesting are effective. History shows time and time again that disrupting the money supply is the only thing that is.

Most likely result now is if it got large enough the national guard would be activated and they'd start high profile jailings.

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Bluehorsesho3 OP t1_ism6xyb wrote

No one said nonviolent protest is easy. You’d show the hand of the property owners too because violence would likely end up being used against people who participated in the protest.

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nowyourdoingit t1_ism7ad2 wrote

It won't work in NYC because the conflation of the hyper wealthy and powerful and the deep pool of sycophantic wannabees who are trying to climb that pyramid. When it worked in the past it was because of groups which shared a common cultural heritage...only common heritage for most New Yorkers these days is the grind and pizza rats.

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Bluehorsesho3 OP t1_ism7zon wrote

But how many wannabes are actually in the pool? That’s the real question. If there are fewer than the landlords are marketing to NYers then this would be an effective means of protest.

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thetwelth2018 t1_ism8c6c wrote

Debtors prisons are illegal in the US. The likely outcome would be the government declaring a national emergency and allowing people to stay in place without paying rents. But private landlords would not be incentivized to maintain a basic level of service and could possibly try to destroy their buildings to collect on property insurance a la the Bronx is burning a few decades ago. An alternative could be public confiscation of these properties but then you have NYC as your landlord which is you ask any NYCHA resident they will tell you NYC is a slumlord. Best case would be for the landlords to coop their buildings but by that point the city would be destroyed. Best to pay your rent or move back to Iowa.

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nowyourdoingit t1_ism9847 wrote

They wouldn't arrest people for failure to pay rent. They would arrest people for civil disobedience and resisting arrest and a variety of other things. The powers at be in the US have been working since before the US was a country to put measures in place to limit the potential efficacy of rebellions and strikes. George Washington and the Whiskey Rebellion...

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thetwelth2018 t1_ismb86d wrote

The 2020 protests confirm that the governments response would not be to jail large protests. Even the violent rioters were often not arrested or prosecuted. A nonviolent rent strike would receive a very favorable response from the government.

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