Why does the left hate home-ownership?
‘Roads are made,
streets are made, services are improved, electric light turns night into day,
water is brought from reservoirs a hundred miles off in the mountains -- and
all the while the landlord sits still. Every one of those improvements is
effected by the labor and cost of other people and the taxpayers. To not one of
those improvements does the land monopolist, as a land monopolist, contribute,
and yet by every one of them the value of his land is enhanced. He renders no
service to the community, he contributes nothing to the general welfare, he
contributes nothing to the process from which his own enrichment is derived.’ Winston
Churchill, 1909
(http://www.landvaluetax.org/current-affairs-comment/winston-churchill-said-it-all-better-then-we-can.html)
Churchill
was referring to land monopolists, not necessarily to the landlords who own
people’s flats and homes and collect rents from those individuals in exchange
for doing the occasional repair and refraining (if it suits them) from exercising
their legal right to throw the tenants out. But the parasitic nature of the
activity is the same.
And while
the state landlord, which provides ‘social’ housing and is the darling of the
left, assumes a more benign role, its power over tenants, to whatever extent that
power may or may not be abused, is just as great as that of the private
landlord.
Thus, this
post is an argument for universal home-ownership as of right, on the principle
that adequate housing, which includes security of tenure, is already defined as
a human right (see http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/FS21_rev_1_Housing_en.pdf;
how long any human rights will remain in Britain, even in theory, is another
question), and a dwelling that’s owned by someone other than the occupant
(whether state or private landlord) cannot provide that security, whatever the
lease says.
And I do
mean universal. Every individual and every family would own the dwelling they
lived in, paying an affordable mortgage until they paid it off and owned the
place outright. If they lost their job, became disabled, or otherwise suffered
loss of income, the state would cover the mortgage as it now pays housing
benefit for rents.
Rentals
would be a thing of the past, except in limited numbers for transients such as
students or workers on exchange placements, and strictly regulated.
Experience of private rental
Recently I
was at a demonstration on behalf of families in Edinburgh who were evicted by
private landlords because of the benefits cap, and placed in B&B. This is
an atrocity that shouldn’t happen.
I cared
about it partly because I’m in a private rental too, with no security, and like
all private tenants I live in fear.
I get a
fright whenever I spot a narrow white hand-addressed envelope on the floor
under the letter-slot. A year ago an envelope like that contained a letter from
the landlady, which began: ‘You have been good tenants …’ (the plural being
because my son lives with me to save on rent). My heart stopped; this is it, I
thought. It was bound to happen. She wasn’t going to let us stay here forever.
Although we’d been there for four years, I hadn’t even hung up all my pictures:
why create more packing to do, when any day we might be given the 2 months’
notice we were entitled to?
But the
letter went on to explain that, because of various expenses she was facing, she
was having to raise the rent from £550 to £600 a month. Could I manage that?
she asked. Oh thank God, thank God; she was just raising the rent! Of course I
could manage it.
Experience of council rental
Of course,
everyone on the left disapproves of the brutal terms of private rentals. But
the universally suggested solution, more ‘social’ housing – that is,
state-controlled rentals for the poor – is only superficially more secure and
comes with its own particular disadvantages, as I know from having lived in it.
Then, too,
I felt alarm at the sight of the familiar Housing Department envelope coming
through the door. True, it wasn’t as alarming as an envelope from a private
landlord, since it was unlikely to contain a threat of eviction unless I was in
arrears. But instead of thinking ‘Am I evicted?’ I would think ‘What do they
want now? What have I done now? What are they going to do to the place now?’ Regarding
tenants as naughty children, social inadequates for whom the council officials
were responsible, they were always nagging, never letting you forget that you
were in council property, not in your own home. They would remind you of the
stair-sweeping rota or complain that the grass wasn’t being cut. One woman had
to travel to their office with her young child solely for the purpose of being
told off about the latter circumstance. Shortly after I moved in they decided
to have the flat completely re-wired at a date of their choosing: days of
hammering and drilling from 8 am onwards. I was lucky not to be ill, or caring
for a new baby, or sitting exams, or facing a job interview: they still would
have gone ahead at the time they had planned.
They can
change conditions of tenancy. When I rented my council flat it was agreed that
I could let my dogs into the front garden. But at one point I got a letter
saying I couldn’t. There had been a change of management and thus a change of
conditions. I argued with them and they backed down. But they needn’t have, as
they had all the power.
Another
time, I got a letter which was sent to everyone in my 6-flat tenement,
complaining that the bins hadn’t been put out regularly over a certain period
of time. As it happened, I knew beyond any doubt that this was untrue, because
I myself had been putting them all out every week during the period in question.
(I’m not sure how this situation arose; it was no-one’s fault, and anyway it’s
irrelevant.) When I telephoned the council to complain about the false
allegation, the woman said airily, ‘Oh, we send those letters to all the
tenements.’ Got to keep these people in line; if they haven’t done this particular
wrong thing, they’ve probably done something else.
‘No Ball Games’
These
ubiquitous notices announce: these are council properties and we tell the
inhabitants what to do. One high-rise block that I saw had a notice over the
main door saying ‘Property of X Council’ – as though the inhabitants themselves
were council property. During riots a few years ago, councils were evicting
relatives of people who had been arrested. One council requires all tenants to
either have a job or do unpaid work, or lose their tenancy. Recently it was
announced that a certain council was forbidding tenants to smoke even at ‘home’
– though it’s not a home, is it, when the council can do that.
The
insulting letter, complaining about ball games and the like, that was
hand-delivered to near neighbours of the Grenfell tower the day after the fire,
caused outrage mainly because of the timing, but what’s really outrageous, and
symptomatic of the status of ‘social’ tenants, is that they routinely get
letters like that.
The letter
included a threat of ‘legal proceedings that may include possession of the
property’, that is, eviction. Home-owners can only be repossessed if they don’t
pay the mortgage; the bank doesn’t monitor their behaviour.
You may say
that a decent socialist council wouldn’t do such things. But the point is that
they could, and that because they could, it’s not your home. Nor, for the same
reason, is a ‘social’ rental much more secure in practice than a private one.
Stigma
In the
crime novels I read, which like all best-sellers are cultural indicators, the
setting often includes a nearby ‘notorious council estate’, a hotbed of
drug-dealing and gang warfare, although it will be noted condescendingly that
‘some good people live there’. In one novel a well-to-do woman, asked by police
whether her husband is violent, denies it indignantly with the words ‘I’m not a
council-house wife!’ Of course the cop informs her that domestic violence knows
no class, but the low status of council tenants remains unchallenged.
I’m a
passenger in a car with a middle-class woman, an associate in an activity I
pursue. We pass a really nice new council estate near where I live, built to
replace some high-rises that were recently demolished. Here, instead of flats,
the tenants – even single people – all have their own separate little houses
with gardens, and the surrounding area is one of grass and trees. I remark
‘Those are nice houses,’ to which she replies, making a face, ‘Yes – it’s the people.’
The frequently
heard term ‘schemie’ says it all. But you can’t just tell people to change
their attitude, because the attitude is based on the official neediness – that
is, socio-economic inferiority – of the tenants, who gained their tenancies by
having enough ‘points’ of disadvantage. After all, they’re getting ‘subsidized’
housing, not paying their full dues. In an American novel, occupants of one of
the ‘projects’ are described, following the indignant observation that they all
have Sky TV aerials, as ‘sucking at the federal tit’.
I realize
that, to the unfortunate families stuck in B&B in North Edinburgh, and
having to walk the streets during the hours they’re not allowed in, these drawbacks
of council housing would seem like pretty small beer. They would consider
themselves lucky to have a physically comfortable flat to live in at all. But
why is that the best that so many people can aspire to?
Thatcher’s right-to-buy
This is the
main answer to the title question of this post. When people think ‘home-ownership’
they immediately think ‘Thatcher’. Well, let’s look at the right-to-buy program
and see the objections to it and consider whether these bad features – where
they existed – would have to form part of a policy of universal home-ownership.
(1) The right-to-buy was a
departure against a background of assuming that home-ownership is only for
some. And it remained only for some. ‘Those who could not afford to exercise it
tended to be lone parents, younger tenants, people living on their own, or
Thatcherism’s economic losers: the unemployed or low-skilled’ (Andy Beckett in
The Guardian, 20 August 2015; https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/aug/26/right-to-buy-margaret-thatcher-david-cameron-housing-crisis). Actually, home-owners
are a majority in the UK generally and Scotland in particular: see Trading Economics, http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/home-ownership-rate
and http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Housing-Regeneration/TrendTenure
While this is good news for the home-owners, it marks both private
and, especially, public renters as a minority of failures. Home-ownership is
seen as the condition of a responsible, settled, adult; renting as the reverse.
By definition, a policy of universal home-ownership would not have this feature.
(2) The right-to-buy depleted the housing stock.
No, it depleted the number of council tenancies. The houses were still there, with the same people living in them. The argument cited implies that the houses crumbled to dust as soon as the purchase agreement was signed.
(3) Council house building declined following the right-to-buy.
There was nothing to stop the government building more council houses if it wanted to. And although under my scheme there would be no rentals, public or private (with the limited exception mentioned), there would be nothing to stop the government building as many houses for owner-occupancy as were needed.
(4) Council houses were sold to buy-to-let landlords.
Again, by definition, the landlord class wouldn't exist under a scheme allowing practically no rentals, and those stringently regulated.
(5) It got working-class people into debt.
I've actually seen this ridiculous argument, and want to point out that if you have to rent, you're in lifelong debt to the landlord class (public or private), whoever your landlord is at the moment. The only way to escape it is to leave your dwelling and sleep in the streets so you won't have to rent another place. Otherwise your debt to The Man, unlike a mortgage, can never end until you die and no longer need a roof over your head.
Under my scheme mortgages would be affordable by all, with housing benefit or equivalent available where needed. (Better yet would be a citizen's income that covered housing costs, but that's another issue.)
(6) When a mortgage is paid off, no more money goes to the state.
The solution to this problem is taxation. The state shouldn't balance its budget by demanding rent, which is just extortion backed up by the threat of homelessness.
Ideological left-wing reasons for
hostility
But the
above arguments cloak a profound emotional disapproval of home-ownership on the
part of the left, because of two dirty words in its vocabulary: private and individual.
Private
In the housing
context, the left draws no distinction between, on the one hand, the private
landlord or capitalist who oppresses others, and the private person or family
who want basic things for themselves, such as housing security, or freedom from
the state surveillance and control that goes with ‘social’ housing. It’s a case
of ‘private-bad, public-good’. And by ‘public’ is meant, in practice, the
state. It’s fine for the state to provide genuinely public infrastructure,
health care, and education, but it shouldn’t be in a position to make people
homeless, which is inevitably the position of anyone, private or public, who
owns somebody else’s home.
Individual
The Guardian article cited above describes
the right-to-buy as ‘individualistic’:
‘The 1988 survey asked 1,230 buyers why they had bought, and
received hard-headed, individualistic, essentially Thatcherite responses: “good
financial investment ... the ‘bargain’ which discounts on sales provided ...
the sense of security ... of pride ... the freedom to repair or improve ... the
desire to have something to leave the family ... to move up the housing ladder
... to increase mobility”’.
Nor, according to
this article, does the middle-class left represented by the Guardian distinguish between ‘Thatcherite’
motives such as investment opportunities, pride, or moving up the housing
ladder, from non-Thatcherite, reasonable motives which are just dropped into
the list in obscure positions: ‘the sense of security’, ‘freedom to repair or
improve’.
But for a more direct
and unequivocal attack on home-ownership, we must turn to Common Weal.
‘For 40 years Scotland has suffered from “me first”
politics – and we all came second. Politics has made a few extremely wealthy
and left the rest suffering …’ (http://www.allofusfirst.org/)
Here the greed and selfishness of the ruling
class are associated with the individualistic ‘me’ – while the majority, the
working class, are described as ‘we all’, ‘the rest’, and (in its web address)
‘allofus’. Both these groups are collections of individuals, each of whom has
individual interests, since a collective lacks the consciousness to suffer, be
happy, or, thus, to have interests. When we cooperate and help others, we do it
as individuals with and for other individuals. Yet Common Weal presents the
actual struggle between two groups of individuals – the ruling class which owns
and controls all the goods that others need, leading to poverty, low wages, and
dole slavery; and ordinary people, who just want enough to have a pleasant life
– as a moral struggle between the individual (bad) and the group (good).
Its housing policy reflects this value in various
aspects. On the drawbacks of state control of housing, it writes:
‘There have been two problems with public sector housing in
the past. One is that they tended to be managed inflexibly by local authorities
which were averse to allowing tenants any control over their home. Another more
recent problem has been that smaller units of ownership (such as smaller
housing associations) have tended to merge into bigger ones which have created
ownership models which are too large and commercially focussed with sell-offs
and underinvestment common outcomes.
‘To
address this, the ownership of housing should be kept in the public sector,
with mainly local authorities planning housing supply according to local need.
However, the management of housing should be tenant-controlled in small units
of local management.’ (‘http://allofusfirst.org/the-key-ideas/housing-for-people-not-the-market/)
So having avoided the dire threat of ‘ownership models’, we will
still be subject to the No Ball Games mentality, but this time
‘tenant-controlled’, in other words imposed by our neighbours. It’s true that home-owners
may face petty requirements imposed by residents’ associations or planners, but
they are still secure in their homes should a conflict arise, whereas ‘social’
tenants, including those under a supposedly more democratic scheme, will always
have the insecure status of renters who are being done a favour by being housed
and are constantly subject to judgement by the council – or in the Common Weal
scheme – by busybody tenants’ association members.
.
Common Weal also promises that, under its scheme, ‘Very long-term
secure leases will be the norm’. But if you own your home, unless it’s a
leasehold arrangement, there is no ‘term’ at all to your right of occupancy.
Why should people have an end date set to the home that is the basis of
everything else in their lives? Oh, the leftist cries, because otherwise you
might be able to pass it on to your children, and that would be Inherited
Wealth! No, it would be inherited security, and if, under the scheme I favour,
everyone, whatever his/her family situation, were guaranteed a secure, owned
home, there would be no special privilege involved in acquiring it from
parents. Your children need a home as much as, and no more than, anyone else.
The money they save by not having to buy it themselves would be regained by
taxation.
To further its preferred housing policy, Common Weal suggests:
‘As
part of this process public policy should continually de-emphasise incentives
to home ownership … [here are attacks on second homes, speculation and private
rentals: policies I agree with] [t]here
are many innovative ways in which our attitude to housing can be changed. For
example, mortgage-to-rent deals mean that people who own their homes could
convert those homes to being publicly-owned but with reasonable rents and
lifelong security of tenure. People who have been incentivised into home
ownership which is against their best interests should have an exit option from
a bad financial situation.’
The cruelty and arrogance of these words make my blood boil.
‘[I]ncentives to home ownership’ are seen as artificial, as though there were
no natural longing for a secure home of one’s own. And not only do they want to
change the system, they want to change ‘our attitude to housing’. We’re not
even to be allowed to decide on what we want. They stop short of actually wanting
to outlaw home-ownership and force current owners to become council tenants,
but they come damn close to it – probably only because an outfit like Common
Weal hasn’t the power to do it. And to gain support for such measures, they
intend to offer an ‘exit option’ to those who have been ‘incentivised’ – by
right-wing tabloids, of course – into owning their homes.
Meanwhile these bad incentives and bad attitudes are presumably to
be addressed by re-education programs run by Common Weal, because we mustn’t be
allowed to think the wrong things.
Feasibility
But, you
cry, even though it would be nice for everyone to own a home, ‘we’ just can’t
afford it. I asked an economist whether, in terms of real wealth rather than fiscal
manipulation, it would be possible for everyone to own a home. He pointed out
that nearly everyone has a place to live anyway; it would just be a question of
changing tenure. Of course, there aren’t enough houses and the government
should build more, but that’s a problem under the council-house regime too, so
it doesn’t impair the case for universal home-ownership.
The crash
of 2008 was blamed on the banks because they gave ‘subprime’ mortgages to ‘subprime’
people who couldn’t afford them. So the subtext of this account of the crisis
is that it’s hopelessly impractical, even disastrous, for poor people to have
their own homes. But what about the interest charged by the banks? What about
the price of houses, largely determined by the price of land?
In any case,
the scheme I favour would not be just for the deserving poor: it would be for
everyone, including the lazy, the improvident, and the unemployable, because
it’s a human right as absolute as the right to life. Indeed, it wouldn’t be
just for the poor whether deserving or not, because that leads to all the
oppressive and stigmatizing features of council housing. If some people are
deemed too rich as a result of getting affordable homes, there is such a thing
as progressive taxation.
A home is
an indivisible good: if you’re deprived of money or even food, you may be able
to get various amounts of it from various sources; but a home is something that
you either have or you don’t. Homelessness destroys life in all but the meagre
physical sense. Without a home there’s no job or business, no family or social
life, no personal identity.
Because of
this a home, like an income, should be seen as a human right: and no rental,
public or private, on however supposedly favourable terms, can ever be a home.
