Housing Resistance
“The
history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles...
[in this] the bourgeoisie, historically, has played a most revolutionary
part... [it] has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has
reduced the family relation to a mere money relation... [this revolutionary
force] must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions
everywhere.”
These words are taken from the opening
lines of the Communist Manifesto, written more than 150 years ago. Yet they perfectly describe the world we live
in today; a world rent by economic strife and class struggle driven deep into
every tiny crack and crevice of modern society.
But the world was not always like
this. Some few human communities still
exist as they have done for hundreds of years, in peace and security, where
money has little use except in trade. In certain remote and ancient villages in
northern Africa or the Middle East, whitewashed homes still stand cool and
secure, where successive generations are raised without debt or mortgage, or
fear for the future. These houses have
doors made of wood and iron that have never felt the knock of a Sheriff or a
Banker or a Real Estate broker. The
children raised in these homes play and grow to marry without ever once calculating
the inheritance they'd collect if only their parents would have the decency to
die.
Yes, in some places, evidence still exists
of a better way to live than this. But
not here. In our world, all our
relations are in some respect, “money relations” as Marx put it. Ours is a world where poverty and oppression
go together like pasta and sauce. Where
a mother's love, and a father's devotion are reducible to precise dollar values
in divorce proceedings. Where lawyers
and accountants must first slice up the family home before the bride is allowed
to cut up her wedding cake. Where parents charge rent to their children and
evict their unemployed teenagers for overdue arrears. Where the division of a parent's estate is
fought over while these same parents sit, still very much alive, silently ruing
their part in raising such a brood of monsters... this is the “market economy”, where “money problems” are served at
every family dinner, and “financial insecurity” slips under the sheets to
intrude itself between husband and wife when the lights go out. This is the Bourgeois Revolution, triumphant.
Seen in this way, it is an outrage, but
seen every day, it fatally evades attention.
It is a tumour growing on the body of society. Everyone you meet on the street has the same
affliction, growing within them, dominating their thoughts and sapping their
strength... “How do I make more money?” And like so many cancer sufferers, to stop
for a moment and reflect, what is that
stabbing pain? Is to admit doubt, and with doubt, fear, and with fear,
anxiety, and with anxiety, weakening and collapse. We must keep moving, growing! but we are not growing, it is the tumour
that grows. We have no time to stop, we
must work! We can't afford to be
sick! When finally the “problem” becomes
so enormous it can no longer be denied, it is of course too late. At the end of our lives, we realise we have
served this thing growing inside us to the exclusion of almost everything else
that matters. And finally, at the very
moment our eyes are truly open for the first time, we die.
This is the life we have made for
ourselves. We cannot imagine living any other way. Yet there is another way, if we could,
squinting, only see it, and choose it.
One thing, a small thing really, but a
thing nonetheless which has been made a killing field in the class struggle, is
the fight over Housing Security. It was
not an issue until the bourgeoisie made it one, but now that it is one, it is a
fight to the finish, at least as far as workers are concerned.
Capitalism, as Marx demonstrated, must
possess everything, own everything, control everything, no matter how sacred or
seemingly insignificant. And the family
home is such a thing. The process of owning everything requires disruption and
destablisation. Workers, the sole
producers of value must be unsettled so they can be parted from what they have
earned and acquired and rely upon. And of
course, the single most important thing that any worker can own, besides their
lives and health, besides their time and labour, is their home.
A worker who owns their own home is
secure. They have resources and leisure
in which to contemplate their lot in life, and their duty as human beings. They do not have to work as hard to support
themselves and their families. They are
free, at least to think, to question.
Workers who do not own their own homes, who
must work to pay off a a heavy mortgage, whether it is theirs, or their
landlord's, are in a precarious situation.
If they lose their jobs, they lose their homes, and in our society,
being homeless and unemployed is a form of “fiscal death” which is itself a
form of “social death” leading in some cases to physical death. Workers rightly fear it. This fear makes them amenable to
control. Workers who are tenants, or in
debt are therefore more compliant, more docile, more subservient, and easily
dissuaded from taking collective action as they ought.
Housing insecurity therefore can be seen as
a form of Social Control, one which keeps pressure on workers so that ideally,
they will be more “productive” and less politically disruptive. Where this form of social control becomes public policy, you are looking at the class struggle, aimed squarely at your
head. Now imagine instead an army of
workers secure in their homes, able to work a little less, and attend a few
more meetings, read a few more books, and think. Such an army of workers would be very hard to
put down. Which is yet another reason
why housing security is such a hotly contested social battle ground.
It is no coincidence then, that “property
investing” and the commodification of residential housing began at the same
time that Neo-Liberalism was popularised by Thatcher and Reagan. Since the 1980's, an incipient “housing
bubble” has been inflating, fueled by low taxes for the rich, oceans of
printed money and a lemming-like urge to repeatedly buy assets that
inarticulate instinct tells us we should already own by right. We fell prey to an unbelievably pervasive public relations campaign showing happy families and picket fences. We were sold on the idea that we owed it to ourselves to get into
debt. Banks and financial advisors
around the world advised “mums and dads” to replace the vanishing pensions
their taxes had already paid for with “rental property portfolios” using
borrowed money. This would bring in
“passive income” from “renters” who would obligingly “pay your mortgage for
you” so that you, the “smart money” would be able to “secure your financial
future”. Millions bought it, literally,
and promptly lost everything because of it.
The promise of financial freedom, dangled like a carrot from a white
picket fence post was alas a lie.
For more than 30 years, property prices
have increased on the back of this propaganda barrage, from an historic average
2:1 ratio of house price to gross income, to more than 6 times, as it is
now. A simple wooden house built in 1930
that was not meant to last more than 50 years now sells 80 years later for over
$1 million. If the present situation
continues, with house prices growing at current rates, the same mouldy house
will be priced at $2 million in 2022. In
contrast, worker's wages have not only failed to keep pace, they have actually
declined in the same period. This is a
ridiculous and unsustainable state of affairs.
The answer is clear; while so ever worker's homes are treated as
commodities to be traded and speculated upon, workers can never be secure. The only solution is to put an end to the
speculative market in residential properties.
The easiest way to do this is to remove the commercial incentive for
investing in property for exploitative purposes.
This is currently considered unthinkable,
but in fact, it has been done before, many times, in different ways, and in
some of the most unlikely places.
One way this has been done is through Rent controls. The United States has an
extensive history of rent control, with rent controls common in San Francisco,
New York, Los Angeles and Washington DC.
Rent controls can take many forms, but
typically involve putting a cap on rent rises for a tenant while they are
occupying the property, and granting the tenant much stronger occupancy
rights. These stronger occupancy rights
effectively remove the distinction between home ownership and rental tenancy,
making the tenant as secure in their control of the property as they would be
if they actually owned it. Rent control
tenants in many San Francisco properties for example cannot have their rent
raised, even after decades, and cannot be removed or evicted unless the owner
themselves or their immediate family intends to move in.
Many millions of Americans know what rent control is, and would count themselves very fortunate to live in a rent controlled property in a city like San Francisco. However, it seldom crosses their minds to
consider that rent control is actually a form of Socialism, won by struggle,
through the organised participation of militant tenant associations.
Contrary to the rabid fears of
Neo-Liberals, such rent controls do not adversely affect rental accommodation
availability in these cities. Instead, rent controls merely drive out the speculators.
Property owners continue to buy apartment buildings for their intrinsic
value, not their speculative value.
Rents typically cover property taxes, maintenance and the opportunity
cost of the original investment.
While not an entirely adequate
Revolutionary Socialist solution, it nonetheless breaks the back of the
property hoarders and speculators, and restores housing security to
workers. Activism in this context is
crucial for the creation of class consciousness – tinkering with reforms will
not suffice. However additional support can
come in the form of legal restrictions
on the number of rental properties that can be owned concurrently, the creation
of housing co-ops, Building and Friendly Society formation and so forth. All of these methods together serve to
subvert the commercial incentives for speculators, improve home affordability
and housing security, and thus take pressure off of workers. Taking pressure off of workers is vital, as
it allows them leisure to examine their role in society, and to develop other
social policy changes even more wide-ranging and ambitious than housing reform.
In New Zealand, most Kiwi's, shocked at the
growing gap in housing affordability seldom consider that there is anything
that can be done about it, other than to work harder and save more. This is precisely what the bourgeoisie want
workers to think. The bourgeoisie are
solving their need for greed by propagating the myth that there is “no
alternative” to Neo-Liberalism and pitiless “personal responsibility”, when all
the while, the game has been rigged from the beginning. But there is an alternative to “generational
mortgages” and permanent home insecurity. It is called resistance.
Linda M.
Socialist Aotearoa
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