> The only reasons I'm not living in a stack of cardboard boxes for $1 rent are that it's illegal

My initial reaction to reading this is not "oh great analogy", it's "please have higher standards for your quality of living"

With the money you wouldn't be paying in rent, you could build a heck of a lot of stuff. Cardboard box is a metaphorical starting point. You could build some kind of little wooden box vehicle and travel the country. If you stayed in town you could have takeout for every meal too and still have money left over. The point was not paying rent to the corrupt system, the point wasn't the exact living specifications.