For example, under Feudalism, aristocratic landlords extorted money from tenants simply because their birth allowed them to. Now, landlords must pretend that their ownership is morally justified, that they help uplift the economy, that their role in society is integral to personal liberty - while they extort money from their tenants.

Under Feudalism, property owners hired violent guards to brutalize their workers and tenants into obedience simply because they could. Now, we must pretend that the police exist to protect and serve everyday people, rather than to enforce property relationships.

Certainly, some functions of property renting and the police are in the public interest, but these are not the functions that define these institutions. The pro-social functions of police are the functions of social workers, researchers and EMTs. These functions could easily be carried out without riot cops forcing homeless mothers out of a vacant house or tear-gassing Indigenous water protectors.

The pro-social functions of our land-ownership system could easily be carried out by public or cooperative land trusts, without maintaining feudal power dynamics between landlords and renters.