the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Mar 6, 2023
An early morning fire that started in one apartment in a 15-story building in downtown Silver Spring, Maryland, outside Washington, D.C., spread throughout the building because the individual apartments still don’t have sprinklers. The three-alarm blaze killed a woman and displaced 400 residents.
The building is one of 80 older high-rises in Montgomery County without individual unit sprinklers. Legislators are giving these landlords 10 years to fix the problem. That’s a murderous delay!
This building was sold again and again in the last 25 years, with the price rising from under $30 million to almost $220 million. No investor paid for sprinklers. Too expensive.
What happens to landlords whose neglect kills people? Capitalism rewards them with wealth.