Tenants and consumers seem to need protection from landlords and companies. Or is it that one-sided?
Perhaps landlords and companies need protection. Some tenants are irresponsible and even dangerous. I have not always been an ideal tenant, to put it mildly. Consumers have been so greedy that they have driven companies to bankruptcy, as was the case several times with US automobile companies – except the government bailed them out each time, along with the powerful UAW union.
Landlords want the most rent they can get. How different are they from tenants? Tenants want the lowest possible rent. The motives of the two sides are exactly the same – neither has a claim to moral superiority. The same moral equivalence holds true with consumers and corporations.
So, why not have landlord and company protection laws instead of tenant and consumer protections? Just as logical, right? Which is to say neither one justifies government intervention on behalf of either side.
I hear one argument against what I have written; the difference in power between landlords and tenants and companies and consumers. It is usually the case that individual landlords are more powerful than individual tenants. However, as a group, tenants have as much power as landlords. The example I gave above about the automobile industry indicates the great power held by consumers; they can bankrupt industries.