A report from the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) ‘Unravelling a crisis: the state of rural affordable housing in England’ highlights how affordable housing and homelessness is not just an urban problem under capitalism.

‘A chronic shortage of genuinely affordable housing is creating huge social housing waiting lists and forcing people out of the communities they know and love. This worrying crisis is being fed by record house prices, stagnating wages and an increasing number of second homes and short term lets.

The countryside, where levels of homelessness have leapt 40% in just five years, is being drained of skills, economic activity and vital public services.

There is an extreme disparity between rural house prices, which are higher than those in other parts of the country, and rural wages, which are much lower. House prices in the countryside increased at close to twice the rate of those in urban areas in the five years to 2022. While the average cost of a home jumped 29% and is now £419,000, rural earnings increased by just 19% to a total of £25,600.’

A November 2023 CPRE report shows that a lack of affordable housing is putting the survival of rural communities at risk, and provides recommendations for solutions.

The chronic shortage of houses local people can afford to live in has resulted in levels of homelessness rising by 40% in just 5 years. More than 300,000 people are on the waiting list for social rented housing in rural England.

And because people are being forced to leave, the countryside is being drained of skills, economic activity, and vital public services.

Key problems include:

The high price of ‘affordable’ housing, due to planning policy defining ‘affordable’ as anything up to 80% of market value.

The lack of new building to replace social homes lost through the Right to Buy scheme.

The relatively low level of rural wages when compared to ever-increasing house prices.

The rapid rise in the number of second homes and homes available for holiday let.

https://www.cpre.org.uk/news/our-report-housing-crisis-poses-threat-to-survival-of-rural-communities/

‘Levels of homelessness have leapt 40% in the countryside in just five years. This crisis is being fed by record house prices, stagnating wages, huge housing waiting lists and a proliferation of second homes and short-term lets.

Shockingly, CPRE analysis has revealed that a greater proportion of people are sleeping rough in the seven worst affected rural local authorities – Bedford, Boston, North Devon, Cornwall, Boston, Bath and Northeast Somerset, Torridge and Great Yarmouth – than they are in London, Leeds or Norwich. People sleeping rough are defined as those sleeping in the open air, tents, makeshift shelters or buildings not meant for human habitation.

In September 2023, the latest month for which data is available, 48 people per 100,000 were sleeping rough in Boston, England’s worst-affected rural local authority. The figures for Bedford and North Devon, which have the next-highest rates of rough sleeping, were 38 and 29 respectively. This compares with 23 in London, 19 in Norwich and 14 in Leeds.

In England, 12 local authorities designated as largely or predominantly rural had levels of rough sleeping higher than the national average (15 people per 100,000). These were spread across the country, with examples in all regions except the North East, demonstrating the breadth of the problem.’

https://www.cpre.org.uk/news/rough-sleeping-in-countryside-higher-than-some-urban-areas-analysis-shows/

Houses are commodities. The problem is Capitalism, a system predicated upon exploitation and production for profit. The solution to these problems is Socialism where quality goods and services, including housing, will be produced for use not profit.

An article by Janet Surman in the Socialist Standard, June 2019, examines the Urban -Rural imbalance under capitalism.

‘Current global facts and figures on the urban-rural divide reveal disturbing numbers of people in both urban and rural locations living in desperate situations. The capitalist agenda is to profit from whatever scheme is dreamed up and implemented without regard for the externalities which, in this case, are people. There are plans being implemented around the world to remove millions of individuals from millions of acres of productive farmland, to empty the land of people in favour of huge agribusiness projects which can reap significant profits for corporations from mono-crops using vastly reduced labour numbers and, therefore, costs.’ Read more.

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2020/03/when-profit-is-all-2019.html

NO. 1433 JANUARY 2024

 https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2020s/2024/no-1433-january-2024/

20/20 Vision

Eschewing hindsight and looking forwards

To see such a world in which TV news

Isn’t mainly bombed-out buildings or views

Of squalid camps, crowded alleys and yards

Teeming with desperate refugees. Instead

There will be universal reports

Of abandoned border posts and passports,

And no minefields where travellers fear to tread.

A worldwide commonwealth finally beckoned,

Meeting needs, not profit margins, too few,

Advocates have thought was long overdue:

 Cooperative advantages reckoned.

An impossible vision? When really

The imperative is to see clearly.

D. A.

 On Christmas Eve the Ministry of ‘Defence’ announced that a Royal Navy warship, HMS Trent, would be deployed to Guyana in South America. Sky News described the ship as one used for ‘defence diplomacy’.

What, then, was the diplomacy that required the deployment of a gunboat in support? The one-word answer is ‘oil’. The Harvard International Review (27 September) noted: In 2015, the oil giant Exxon Mobil discovered 11 billion barrels of oil off the coast of the small Latin American country. The discovery promises to change Guyana forever, catapulting the country and its people to new heights of power and wealth. Oil already generates US$1 billion in revenues annually for the government and will produce an estimated US$7.5 billion by 2040. By these forecasts, Guyana—the impoverished, rainforest-covered country of just 800,000 people—will become the fourth largest offshore oil producer in the world.

The discovery was off the coast of a part of Guyana which has been the object of a territorial dispute with its neighbour, Venezuela, since the middle of the 19th century when Guyana was part of the British Empire. In 1899 an international court of arbitration awarded the disputed area to the Britain. It’s an area compromising some 75 percent of present-day Guyana. Venezuela never accepted the decision, alleging that it was rigged, but didn’t insist too much in pursuing its claim until now.On 3 December the Venezuelan government, under Hugo Chávez’s successor, Nicolas Maduro, held a referendum throughout the country about whether or not to reject the 1899 ruling and to incorporate the area as a new province. The result was a huge majority for, but on a low turnout, and the government duly established the new province, on paper.

Venezuela, much as it would like to acquire control of the new oilfield, is unlikely to try to actually annex the disputed area. The referendum had more to do with the presidential elections later this year and as a way of trying to win votes for Maduro by beating the nationalist drum. In any event, it is not the land, mainly tropical forest with a few gold mines, that Venezuela really would really like so much as the territorial waters off the area’s coast where the oil is. Diplomatic talks have begun, with the US and Britain backing Guyana. Hence the dispatch of the Royal Navy warship to carry out its role in ‘defence diplomacy’.

Diplomacy is not a matter of working out what is the fair solution to a dispute between states. An important factor affecting the outcome is the relative strength of the two sides. In relations between states might is right. Venezuela may be stronger than Guyana and so could seize the land it claims. But Guyana is backed by the US and Britain, because these don’t want a state with an nationalist anti-American government to control the new oilfield (they want a friendly state to) or to extend its territory (in fact they have been working to overthrow government there), and Venezuela is in no position to take them on any more than it was to challenge the British Empire in 1899.

From threat to action

In another part of the world another Royal Naval warship, HMS Diamond, is also engaged in ‘defence diplomacy,’ in the Red Sea. In fact it has actually used its weapons. As the Royal Navy’s website boasted on 19 December: Diamond’s actions in the small hours of Saturday morning is the first time a Type 45’s Sea Viper missile has been used in action and the first such shootdown by the Royal Navy since the 1990-91 Gulf War.

What is going on in the Red Sea is an aspect of the question of who controls the Persian Gulf, its oilfields and the trade route out of it. In 1980 President Carter laid down the Carter Doctrine that: ‘Gulf oil reserves were of vital interest to the US and the US would therefore be justified in preventing outside domination of the region by military intervention’. This was invoked against Iraq in 1991 and in 2003. Now the threat is from Iran, with the US relying on Israel to counter this. In fact Israel has already bombed Iran on a number of occasions.

Israel is currently engaged in a war of revenge against the Hamas administration in Gaza. The West supports this because Hamas is an enemy of Israel, its asset in the region, only cynically advising Israel not too kill too many Gazans.

Iran and its allies and proxies see the Gaza war as a chance to weaken Israel as the West’s asset. The pro-Iran government of Yemen has been attacking ships bound for Israel or owned by Israeli capitalists. This has led major shipping companies to re-route their ships round Africa, with serious consequences for international trade.

If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse’s feet,

Don’t go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street;

Them that ask no questions isn’t told a lie.

Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!



Five and twenty ponies,

Trotting through the dark —

Brandy for the Parson,

Baccy for the Clerk;

Laces for a lady, letters for a spy,

And watch the wall, my darling,

While the Gentlemen go by!

‘A Smuggler’s Song’ Rudyard Kipling

The Government’s new job creation scheme is starting to pay dividends. Particularly during the war years in Britain of the nineteen forties, a ‘Spiv’ was someone who could supply difficult to obtain items due to rationing or other government restrictions. This was known as the black market.

Del Boys everywhere are encouraged by the economic conditions created by the Executive Committee which runs the UK on Capitalism’s behalf.

Thanks then are due on behalf of spivs everywhere as the opportunities to expand the black market have risen dramatically.

Now, not just tobacco alcohol and fake ‘designer’ commodities are available to the discerning, and poor, consumer but food also has dramatically increased increased the black market possibilities.

Now it’s not so much, ‘it fell off the back of a lorry, rather, it got nicked from the supermarket or wherever. Capitalism it should be noted is not in favour of this form of private enterprise – profits are sacred don’t you know!

In 2024, going on from 2023, in the sixth or seventh largest economy in the world, everyday affordable living necessities are increasingly needed from alternative sources.

The Guardian reports that; ‘Meat, cheese and confectionery are among the items being stolen in large quantities from shops and lorries in order to be sold to people hit by the cost of living crisis.

With food prices rising, figures in policing, retail and academia said action was needed to stop people exploiting the rising demand for stolen food.

With bated breath the hard pressed population awaits the head god botherer’s dire admonishment that the eighth commandment shall be adhered to even if you and your family have to starve to keep it.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/dec/22/britons-increasingly-turning-to-food-black-market-experts-say

The majority’s new year’s resolution for 2024 should be to finally come together and put an end to the exploitative system which is Capitalism. There are many unnecessary jobs which only exist to help perpetuate the system which will be binned under Socialism. Spivving is one of them.

Editorial from the July 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many who are vaguely sympathetic towards Socialism complain that they cannot see what basic difference there is between the S.P.G.B. and the organisations which seek to reform the capitalist system. They think we are exaggerating when we say that there is a fundamental similarity between the admirers of capitalism and the reformists which separates both from the Marxist. A glance at a topical problem, the “black market,” will show that there is no exaggeration in our claim, for both the admirers of capitalism and the reformists believe that it is possible to retain the basis of the capitalist social system and yet to change its operations and the conduct of the human beings who live under it, by means of Acts of Parliament and appeals to goodwill.

When the war began we were told by those who claimed to know that there would be no “profiteering” in this war. Socialists smiled and were disbelieving, knowing that a system built on a foundation of private ownership and profit-making will go on producing its evil results whether in peace or war. We smiled again when the News-Chronicle, nearly two years after the war began, said “the days of, the profiteers in clothing and other necessities of life are numbered” (News-Chronicle, July 25th, 1941). We were not impressed with the story that the capitalist thistle would suddenly produce a crop of social figs because of the appointment of “34 Board of Trade inspectors” who were going to track down the “profiteers.” Nor were we mistaken….

The following extracts are from articles in the Sunday Express (June 14th, 1942) : 

“The racketeers are using the existing shortage of supplies as a suitable occasion to corner stocks of many commodities and re-sell them for big profits. . . . One of the biggest profiteering ramps to-day is the whisky racket. . . . The furniture profiteering ramp to defeat both income tax and maximum controlled prices is worked in this way: A small manufacturing firm sells to the “boss” for absurdly low prices. The furniture is installed in a luxury apartment and resold at prices often 300 per cent. above those paid, and the profits are shared out. Jewellery, furs, silk stockings and underclothing are sold for cash in £1 notes in the West End by racketeers, who do not ask for coupons. Cosmetics and beauty preparations, too, can be bought in any quantity for cash.”

Lastly, there is the Judge sentencing some men charged with frauds in connection with corporation contracts who said : —

“This corruption will either be cut out of commercial life or it will destroy the State.” (“Daily Mail,” June 20th, 1942)

A pretty black picture. But, retorts the reformer, make the penalties more severe, copy Russia and Germany and introduce the death penalty, then it will cease. How little they know of that “human nature” they so often talk about. The history of capitalism has demonstrated beyond refutation that given the opportunity (the ownership of goods for sale and a ready market) and given the motive (big and quick profits) nothing will stop illicit deals in one form or another, from robbery and smuggling to black marketeering, and to the numerous operations that can be conducted just on the borderline of legality. The severity of the penalty may to a degree restrict, but it will never stamp out such deals, for operators will always be found who will discount the risk. Even within the limited sphere of keeping the number of such transactions to a comparatively moderate total, experience has proved that it is not the severity of the penalty but the small chance of escaping detection that is alone effective. Otherwise the intending law breaker always hopes that he will not be caught. This was the lesson of the Factory Acts, of the legal minimum wage of agricultural workers, and of income tax evasion. What alone made any impression was not the size of the penalty imposed on law breakers who were caught but the appointment of sufficient inspectors and the use of other means of convincing the offenders that their chances of escaping discovery were small. Even so, most legislation of such a nature is largely a dead letter. The capitalist basis which provides opportunity and motive still prevails against the puny efforts by law or pious resolution to make a competitive system work for the social good.

So much for those who hope to change by Act of Parliament the conduct of people living under capitalism as its exists to-day. But almost equally foolish are the Labour Party and I.L.P. reformists who believe that they can retain the capitalist or State-capitalist basis, with its rich and poor (but with the degree of inequality lessened), with its production of goods for sale, its property incomes and profit-making, and its whole paraphernalia of money, bonds and banks, and can yet persuade or compel capitalists and workers to desist from conduct which flows naturally from a two-class, private property social system, and go over to conduct appropriate to a social system based on human needs alone.

The present spectacle of the “profiteers” and racketeers and the comparative futility of the efforts to stamp them out should be a warning to all who believe that capitalism can be reformed. Socialists take their stand on the very different principle that only by a fundamental change in the basis of society, from private ownership to the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production and distribution will human conduct likewise change. It is to the economic foundation, not to the legal and ethical superstructure of society, that attention needs to be directed.

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2022/07/editorial-human-nature-black-market-and.html

The following is taken from an article titled Darwinism Is The Daddy Of Communism And Other Evils

‘In a previous essay, we briefly mentioned that the theory of evolution had spawned some very evil progeny such as communism and Nazism.  It is imperative that folks grasp the truth of that (we will discuss this point further near the end).  To help them do so, we are going to look more closely at the effects of the theory of evolution – Darwinism – on key actors who developed and implemented these demonic ideologies.

End of year quizzes are popular. You decide which, if any, of these ten war propaganda “justifications” are relevant to any of the current conflicts taking place at the present time. Or put them on your ‘bingo’ card for future use. Conflicts under capitalism will never end until the end of capitalism itself.

From the Socialist Standard October 2002

1. “We don’t want war”

Arthur Ponsonby had already pointed out that, before declaring war or when they are making the declaration of war, the statesmen of all countries, at least in modern history, always solemnly proclaim that they did not want the war. War and its train of horrors are rarely popular a priori and it is thus good taste to present yourself as a lover of peace.

2. “The opposing side is solely responsible for the war”

Arthur Ponsonby had already noted the paradox in the First World War, which could also no doubt be found in many previous wars: each side proclaims that it was forced, to declare war to prevent the other side from putting the planet to fire and sword.

3. “The enemy has the face of the devil”

You can’t hate the whole of a human group, even when it is presented as the enemy. It is thus more effective to concentrate hatred of the enemy onto the opposing leader. The enemy thus has a face and this face is evidently odious. War is not carried on against the “Boshes” or the “Japs” but more precisely against Napoleon, the Kaiser, Mussolini, Hitler, Nasser, Gaddafi, Khomeiny, Saddam Hussein or Milosevic. This odious bogeyman disguises the diversity of the population they lead, amongst the ordinary citizen might find a counterpart to identify with.

4. “We are defending a noble cause not particular interests”

Wars generally have as their motive a desire for geopolitical domination, accompanied by economic reasons. But such motives for war cannot be admitted to public opinion. Modern wars, however, are only possible with the consent of the population, if only because parliaments have in principle to give their agreement to war being declared. This consent is easily obtained if the population thinks that their independence, their honour, their freedom, or their lives, depend on the outcome of the war and that the war is the bearer of indisputably moral values. Propaganda has therefore to disguise certain aims and get other aims believed in.

5. “The enemy knowingly commits atrocities; if we blot our copybook it’s involuntarily”

Stories about atrocities committed by the enemy are an essential element of war propaganda. Obviously this doesn’t mean that atrocities don’t take place in wars. On the contrary, assassinations, armed robberies, burnings, looting and rape seem rather to be — unfortunately — current in all war situations and the practise of all armies, from ancient times to the wars of the 21st century. What is specific to war propaganda is getting people to believe that only the enemy is in the habit of doing these things, while our own army is at the service of the population, even the enemy’s, and is loved by them. Deviant criminality becomes the very symbol of the enemy army alone, composed essentially of bandits without law or faith.

6. “The enemy is using unauthorised arms”

This principle is a corollary of the previous one. Not only do we not commit atrocities but we make war in a chivalrous way, respecting the rules — as if war was a game, certainly tough but manly. Obviously this is not the case of our enemies, who refuse to abide by the rules. In reality, the outcome of wars can depend on the strategic skills of the generals or on the motivation and courage of the participants but also — mainly? — on the clear superiority of the arms of one of the sides.

7. “We suffer very few losses, the enemy’s losses are enormous”

With only rare exceptions, humans generally prefer to be on the winning side. In the case of war the support of public opinion depends on the perceived results of the conflict. If the results are not good, propaganda must hide our losses and exaggerate those of the enemy.

8. “Artists and intellectuals support our cause”

Propaganda, like all forms of advertising, is based on emotion. It is the lever used permanently to mobilise public opinion; it can even be said that propaganda and emotion have always been of the same nature. However, to arouse emotion you can’t rely on civil servants. You have to call in either advertising professionals — which the Kuwait lobby did in calling in Hill and Knowtown who concocted for them the touching story of babies torn from their incubators by Iraqi soldiers—or to artists and intellectuals, who are professionally trained to arouse emotions.

9. “Our cause has a sacred character”

If our cause is sacred we are obliged to defend it, if necessary with arms. But this sacred character can be taken either in a literal or a broader sense. Taken literally, this would mean that, if the cause is religious, the war is a crusade from which nobody can opt out. And in fact the religious argument has been used in war propaganda. Pithy formulations such as Gott mit Uns, In God we trust, or God save the King will be recalled which often accompanied the combatants and still do.

10. “Those who question the propaganda are traitors”

Lord Ponsonby had already noted that any attempt to cast doubt on the stories of the propaganda services is immediately considered as a lack of patriotism or rather as treason.

(Translated from Principes élémentaires de propagande de guerre by Anne Morelli, Editions Labor, Brussels, 2001)

https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2002/no-1178-october-2002/beware-war-propaganda/

 Your home as ‘fictitious’ capital

In more recent times the opportunities to ‘make money from money’, so to speak, have expanded for the ordinary person.  For example, the 1980 Housing Act introduced by the Thatcher government in the UK gave council house tenants the legal right to buy their council homes at a discounted price. This combined with the introduction of mortgage interest relief significantly impacted on the property market and widened popular participation in it. Around the time of the First World War three-quarters of the UK population rented their homes; by the early 2000s the situation had reversed with over 70 percent of the population nominally owning their homes – although the percentage has since declined due to the increasing difficulty of would-be first time buyers to get on the housing ladder. 

While rising house prices might put the idea of owning a home beyond the reach of some would-be first time buyers it is, paradoxically precisely these rising house prices that makes the idea of buying a house such a financially attractive proposition. While houses prices as a multiple of average earnings fell during the late 19th century (which explains why rented accommodation was such a widespread phenomenon in the early 20th century Britain), that trend has reversed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, boosted by the relative stagnation in wages. The benefit of owning a home, steadily appreciating in value, instead of paying ‘dead money’ for some over-priced rental property is all too obvious.

A few people with the financial resources to engage in the ‘buy to let’ business might find themselves in the position where they can comfortably live off the rents of their tenants. However, for the vast majority who have purchased a home, renting it out is simply not an option.  Even taking in lodgers would be impractical in many cases.

Consequently, most homeowners continue to depend absolutely on some form of paid work since, with home-ownership, comes financial commitments such as mortgage repayments. True, you might manage to sell your home and realise a capital gain (particularly if the property market is booming) but you still have to find somewhere else to live. It is this makes the idea of treating one´s home as (fictitious) ‘capital’ – as some commentators do – somewhat problematic.  You cannot be without a home since it is a basic human need (unlike other forms of fictitious capital). 

If you do sell your house at a time when house prices are rising then you have the problem of having to pay more for some other house you may subsequently wish to purchase. On the other hand, as well as going up, prices can also come down as occasionally happens after a property boom. Having to sell your property in a slump could very well plunge you into dire financial difficulties that you may never recover from, financially speaking.

The above qualifications notwithstanding, it is nevertheless the case that a fairly large percentage of the working class do indeed engage in the speculative buying and selling of property at some point in their lives.  Normally, the primary means of purchasing a property is via a loan (mortgage) from a bank.  Bank loans (in this case for consumption as opposed to the production of commodities) is, as we saw, a classic example of fictitious capital. 

In the past, at least in the UK, it was building societies (or ‘mutuals’ controlled by their members) that had a virtual monopoly in the issuance of mortgages. This changed in a big way in the 1980s with banks entering the mortgage market and offering a variety of different mortgages to suit different customers. Mortgage loans as a percentage of total bank loans has subsequently grown very significantly. 

These are ‘secured’ loans inasmuch as your home serves as collateral , meaning that if you fail to keep up with your mortgage repayments the bank can take possession of your home. The same is true of auto loans.  However, there are also various kinds of unsecured loans where collateral is not required such as personal loans, student loans and credit cards. These are riskier from the standpoint of the lender and for that reason sometimes attract a higher rate of interest. With the growth in the both the volume and diversity of consumer debt the exposure of working people to the machinations of fictitious capital has increased greatly in recent years.  

However, when we are talking about fictitious capital what more likely springs to mind is not so much our monthly mortgage repayments or our credit card bills but an institution like the stock market. Most ordinary people would have little, if any, direct experience of dabbling in the buying and selling of shares. Essentially the stock market is the domain of the wealthy private investor or else (and to an increasing extent), institutional investors. However, what happens here is in principle no different from what happens when you place a bet on a horse in your local betting shop after having studied its ‘form’.  

It is speculative gambling but on a vastly larger scale, of course. The stupendous wealth that can be made on the stock market rams home the point, again and again, that it is not through hard work that one can become incredibly wealthy. This breeds a kind of cynicism towards work born out of the belief that what is officially supposed to motivate us to work is precisely the lure of money.  If we go along with that belief, how could we not feel cynical, when we see fortunes being made by others who don’t have to lift a finger to do that? When we struggle to pay the bills on the meagre wages we earn it is perhaps understandable that some might feel resentment.

Sometimes, this can be misconstrued as ‘envy’. However, the ‘politics of envy’, as it is called, is an ideological snare and a trap for the unwary. To ‘envy’ someone is to covet what they have and, indeed, to want to become like them (and hence to perpetuate the very system they benefit from). However, it is structurally impossible, not to say nonsensical, for the majority in a capitalist society to come to find themselves in the same economic position of the minority of being able to live off the unearned income that this majority, after all, provides them with. It is not envy that this majority should feel but, rather, outrage.

ROBIN COX

The Guardian reports that:’ Illegal evictions in England hit record high, but less than 1% of landlords convicted.’ The piece documents the abuse suffered by tenants who have been illegally evicted by private landlords.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/dec/24/evictions-in-uk-hit-record-high-but-less-than-1-of-landlords-convicted

A Marxist-Leninist-Maoist comments: ‘The landlord is one of the last vestiges of feudalism still holding power in (now, even late) capitalist society. But because financial capitalism has overrun and conquered industrial capitalism, in this the era of late imperialism, the problematic and fully parasitic existence of the landlord is just another welcome tool of wealth extraction in the capitalist arsenal. It’s a particularly nasty method of wealth extraction, to boot, as evictions will frequently leave former tenants homeless and on the street ,or worse. Just as the serfs in the times of feudalism had to give some fraction of their grain (or other labours) to their lords, so too do renters have to give some fraction of their income — the wealth that they produced at work during the month to their landlords, or be removed from the premises. Yes, modern landlords are literally that, lords of the land, and we still haven’t abolished this wretched vestigial feudal appendage. ‘

https://dashthered.medium.com/marxism-for-newbies-landlords-b24f4f0cdb89

A Trotskyist comments: ‘Along with bankers and capitalists, the landlord class is especially despised. They are regarded very much as greedy speculators, rack-renting owners, who force up rents at the earliest opportunity and cream off a section of the surplus-value created by the working class. It is clear why disdain for them is rising. In Britain alone, rents and housing costs account for up to a half – sometimes more – of the disposable income of working people, which has become an intolerable burden, especially for those who live in the capital.’

https://www.marxist.com/parasitical-landlordism-and-the-marxist-theory-of-rent.htm

Both the Maoist and the Trotskyist have got the wrong end of the stick. They have confused “ground rent” paid to the owner of the land with “house rent” paid to owner of a house as the price of something the house-owner is selling as a commodity, viz, house-room. Those letting out house-room are not members of a “landlord class” left over from feudalism, though the aristocrats and others who own the land in the centre of London might be described as such but even they have long since used the ground-rent they extract to turn themselves into capitalists and so are now part of the capitalist class in their own right. The landlord and capitalist classes of the 19th century have long since merged into a single capitalist owning class.

But why do so many people in this country have to pay rent for their homes? It is an ignominy that is taken for granted: a weekly fee for living in someone else’s house, with the assurance of being able to stay a matter of the temper of parliamentary Acts. The answer to the question is that under capitalism you get only what you can buy, and an increasing number of the population can buy only the use of a house week by week. Not that the alternative, owner-occupation, gives exemption from the problem. For most people it means crippling mortgage repayments for the greater part of their working lives, and the same shadow always there: if you can’t pay, you’re out.

In 1872 Engels wrote, in The Housing Question: “But one thing is certain: there are already in existence sufficient buildings for dwellings in the big towns to remedy immediately any real ‘housing shortage’, given rational utilization of them.” This is at least equally true today. Of course the implication— that the two could tidily be brought together, in society as it is— is fatuous. The more important implication, however, is that capitalism’s sovereign remedy of continually building more houses is no remedy at all.

Given houses built to the cheapest standard, whose maintenance is a matter of their profitability as investments, there is no end to the housing problem. As in Engels’ day, the clearance and replacement of run-down houses is their being “. . . not abolished; they are merely shifted elsewhere! The same economic necessity which produced them in the first place, produces them in the next place also.” Thus, legislation like that which the Guardian says is not been enforced is inescapable under capitalism, but it cannot answer the problem inherent in the way society is organised.

Bricks and mortar are of vital importance to human beings. Housing is involved in innumerable social and personal questions: health, sex, the facilities for both privacy and sociability, education, recreation. Nor is bad or good housing a matter simply of the building by itself. Underlying it all under capitalism are the coercions of the society which produces only for profit. One may compare the technical possibilities of our civilisation with the way people have to live, and see that in this regard as in all others Socialism offers what capitalism cannot.

‘Here’s a health to everyone of you who earns your weekly rent;

Bad luck to every landlord and the landlord’s government;

Good luck to everyone of you who wants to lend a hand,

To speed the time that’s coming when the people own the land.

Bye, bye, greedy landlord,

Bye, bye, greedy landlord, oh!’

That Greedy Landford    Karl Fred Dallas

Totalled

From all the deadly calculus of war,

With mounting tolls that are so horrific

They become just a gruesome statistic,

Let this accounting be for one, not more.

Focus on a single obscenity,

What should be an unimaginable fact,

A child killed through a deliberate act

In vain pursuit of national liberty.

When pulling the trigger is justified

As self-defence, which partial god or creed

Can be invoked to excuse such a deed,

By laying the guilt on the other side?

The gains of war cannot be reconciled

With loss of a man, a woman, a child.

D. A.