New York City rent control laws are about to expire, and supporters are avidly campaigning for a 5-year extension. This in the face of the fact that rent controls have never worked: they create shortages and decrease the quality of housing.

But the activists for rent control don’t care that it doesn’t work. They—and much of the public—think that rent controls are “humanitarian.” After all, isn’t the government trying to help poor people and keep them out of the clutches of greedy, gouging landlords?

What drives these activists are not issues of practicality but issues of morality. Yet there is nothing moral about rent controls.

Rent controls are a violation—not an extension—of human rights. They are a gun at the heads of apartment owners who have the moral right to decide the price at which they will offer a unit for rent.

In a free society, no government (local, state, or federal) has the moral right to interfere with the choices of people to do business with each other. It should no more tell a landlord what price to offer than it should tell a prospective tenant how much he can spend on rent. Both the landlord and the tenant have the moral right to “just say no” to the other’s offer.

From their supposedly high moral plane, the advocates of rent control rest their case on a variety of false charges:

“Only the landlord has a choice, because he controls the apartment that the tenant needs and thus he has the tenant over a barrel”: The tenant controls the rent that the landlord needs; that’s always what’s involved in a contract: each party has a value the other wants, and they trade their values to mutual advantage.

Neither party has a right to the other’s values, no matter how much he wants it: landlords have no divine right to a customer or to certain levels of rent (they’re free to lower their offers or invest their money elsewhere), and tenants have no right to a landlord's apartment (they’re free to seek alternative housing).

“Human rights are more important than property rights.”  Property rights are human rights, and very basic ones. They are the rights of human beings to use their own property. To claim the right to control another person's property is to claim the right to that person's life.

“Rent controls are perfectly legitimate because this is a democracy, and rent controls have been voted in.” It makes no difference how popular a law is; it can still be a violation of rights. Just because the majority votes away someone's property doesn’t give it a moral right to do so.

If a neighbor sneaks into your house and takes some money out of your wallet to help pay his rent, that’s theft; there’s no moral difference if a group of your neighbors gets together and votes away your money to help pay their rents; that’s merely “legalized theft.” If majority rule were the only basis for deciding what the government can do, then 51 percent of the people could legitimately vote to enslave or even kill the other 49 percent. The Nazis were voted into office and had great popular support. All tyrannies are wrong, including tyranny by the majority.

The voters don’t own your life or your property.

“Landlords are just being selfish by wanting higher rents.” Why is it OK for tenants to be selfish by wanting lower rents? In fact, there’s nothing wrong with being selfish—rationally selfish. Selfishness means that you live for your own happiness, not that of others. Landlords want the highest rent they can get, and tenants want the best apartment for the least possible rent. Neither party should be altruistic: the landlord shouldn’t say “you can have this apartment for less than you’re willing to spend,” nor should the tenant say “I’ll pay you more than you’re willing to take, just to make you happy.” Being selfish means you don’t sacrifice yourself to others or sacrifice others to yourself. It means that you—and everyone—live independently, trading value for value.

With the threat of extended rent control looming, New Yorkers should reject the claim—inherited from Marxism—that landlords are “evil exploiters.” Most of the former Communist world has discovered that an economy run by dictatorial decrees (a “command” economy) destroys freedom. Isn’t it about time that our own politicians and tenants learn the same lesson?

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Michael S. Berliner, Ph.D., is Co-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Ayn Rand Institute