Anti-Capitalist Chronicles: Housing in a Broken System

[S5 E07] Housing in a Broken System
**Stay connected with the latest news from d@w. Join our mailing list today: www.democracyatwork.info/sign_up
In this episode of Anti-Capitalist Chronicles, Prof. Harvey shares major lessons he learned while studying the housing issue in Baltimore in the late 1960s and asking the questions: Why is housing quality so appalling in low-income areas? Why had past attempts to change that failed? How could the richest nation in the world tolerate this? Harvey explains how he came to learn the importance of looking at the totality of the system-not just the issue itself-as well as leveraging, how social policies often work well for those who need it least, the issue of gentrification, and more.
David Harvey's Anti-Capitalist Chronicles is a ‪@democracyatwrk‬ production. To our supportive and generous Patreon community: thank you for supporting this podcast. Your contributions help us compensate the staff and workers it takes to put each episode together. Thank you for being part of the ACC team! If you would like to support this project and see more of Prof. Harvey, visit us at / democracyatwork
David Harvey's book "Anti-Capitalist Chronicles" available at www.plutobooks.com
__________________________________________________________________________
We are excited to introduce our new Book Donation Program, which distributes free d@w books to libraries, schools, co-ops, prisons, and more. To request books or donate to the program: www.democracyatwork.info/book...
__________________________________________________________________________
Check out the 2021 Hardcover edition of “Understanding Marxism,” with a new, lengthy introduction by Richard Wolff! www.democracyatwork.info/books
“Marxism always was the critical shadow of capitalism. Their interactions changed them both. Now Marxism is once again stepping into the light as capitalism shakes from its own excesses and confronts decline.”
Check out all of d@w’s books: "The Sickness is the System," "Understanding Socialism," by Richard D. Wolff, and “Stuck Nation” by Bob Hennelly at www.lulu.com/spotlight/democr...
__________________________________________________________________________
Follow us ONLINE:
Website: www.democracyatwork.info
Patreon: / democracyatwork
Facebook: / democracyatwrk
Twitter: / democracyatwrk
/ davidharvey
Instagram: / democracyatwrk
Daily Motion: www.dailymotion.com/democracy...
Shop our Union Coop-Made MERCH: www.democracy-at-work-shop.my...
Visit our books page: www.democracyatwork.info/books

[@NaderNabilart]

Sir, you're an inspiration! I learned 4 key points from this series about housing so far: 1- Theories about evil people almost always boil down to "evil system", just follow the leads to understand the totality of it. 2- Gentrification and moving the problem *elsewhere* is just a narrow temporary band-aid to a much bigger systemic problem. 3- We should pay more attention to "Risk analysis" that might cause negative feedback loops and have destructive effects. 4- "Social policies work best where it's least needed, and worst where it's most needed."

[@peterbeer8657]

There is an evil system, there are also evil needy people. Evil needy people who don't manage their finances properly. I think that is a big part of the problem. You could give people anything they need, but how does that make them self reliant? If they aren't self reliant, who will take up responsibility? If things go wrong, who will pay the damages? Moral hazard. The rich know it but if it happens at their end, it's Ok to do bailouts, because there it exists in the minority while otherwise it's the majority. So it's very much a problem of convenience as well. We are too stupid to let it all happen.

[@sirmclovin9184]

Thanks, GPT-4.

[@NaderNabilart]

@@sirmclovin9184 🥂 cheers!

[@SuperAlex1415]

7.1k views....seems only a handful if people realise the value knowledge David freely passes on!

[@marcminoguehastings247]

never delete this priceless document

[@boombot934]

Our predatory 🎩capitalist society is cruellest on the surface of this beautiful planet🌏🌍 🌎🌹🥀😢

[@taloralexanderwilliams1477]

Thank you for this

[@loveheals3173]

The US is a hardened society with hardened people. Despite all the money and wealth they have there is no sense of community over there anywhere it seems. Especially among the working class

[@sirmclovin9184]

Mostly, yes. But there are exceptions, the church and the military being among them (it is no accident I mentioned them simultaneously).

[@alphaomega1351]

Financial capitalism at its finest. 😶

[@standinginthegap7118]

Make a law where tenants don't have to pay any rent until ALL code violations are fixed. If this is not completed w in 6months the property will be confiscated by the government and managed by FHA until sold to a new landlord. Any loans the former landlord has with the bank, they will have to still pay. The government should not mitigate any of those costs. Make it HURT when landlords are slumlords

[@Bruce_K]

Rent is ridiculous. Singapore rents are rising by 70-100% sometimes according to an article I saw just last week. A person should not be subject to eviction or foreclosure or sudden massive rent hikes. We should have guaranteed housing as a human right. No person should be forced to move. We should be a tribe or community. Brothers. Sisters. Native Americans didn’t have homelessness or hunger or poverty. Everyone ate well and had a teepee and so on. We should be living like kings as Buckminster Fuller noted.

[@marsulgumapu2010]

Just because he didn’t find the evil people doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Not everything is an accident.

[@fellsmoke]

Over policed under served poor innocent....and abused...on one hand...Unpoliced gross self entitled over served on a systemic gravy train..on the other.

[@fracta1organism]

those landlords delaying repairs sound pretty evil to me, and how did the system get this way if not by people who made it that way specifically for the interests of the rich and powerful? harvey's analysis is too soft on class agents.

[@lisazazzarino]

You should watch the entire video before you comment.

[@marsulgumapu2010]

Exactly. This seems to be an apology for disfunction. But in reality there are people who needs to be held accountable for bad behavior who are not. But there’s nobody to hold them accountable.

[@bunny_smith]

Until last night I was convinced this political system is so broken, nothing can happen to improve the plight of the lives of most Americans. However, I did hear of the idea of a well-funded organization of progressive gadfly types that apply constant and ongoing public pressure to legislators. This could take the form of incessant public demonstrations and application of ongoing direct appeal to individual legislators. But it must be organized and well-funded. I'm not certain even this would work as I could see a public and personal and financial backlash on the organizers (individual an collective) from both the political parties designed to scare or intimidate the individuals working for such an organization into the shadows or to give up the struggle completely. I'm sure any kind of organized blowback would probably be very effective, come to think of it. I guess the only options now are open revolution or simply breathing in the water. That's kind of depressing.

[@norman_5623]

In Europe, the workers organize together for their common interests. They have huge demonstrations in the streets. In the US, we don't have that. When's the last time you've seen a big demonstration for public housing? The magazine Jacobin was arguing that identity politics was conflicting with worker organization. Instead, we have people organizing separately as women, unions, GLBT, blacks, Jews, and every minority competing with each other for inadequate support, like for example day care vouchers in NYC. It's much easier for a politician to give handouts of, for example Section 8 housing vouchers to favored identity groups than it is to provide a comprehensive public housing system. And it's a lot easier to buy off "community organizers" with $1 million grants for "local housing projects" than it is to provide *everyone* with a public housing system. The reason the civil rights movement of the 60s had its (limited but significant) results is that we had people from every identity group working together, because we realized that we were all in this together. Identity groups divide us. When union organizers tried to organize workers in the south, they found that the bosses were using racism to divide black and white workers.

[@clarestucki5151]

The fundamental basis of the 'housing problem' is the fact that housing is very expensive to create, and many people are incapable of earning enough to provide their own housing. So, persons of Harvey's political persuasion invariably advocate for public housing. That doesn't solve the basic problem, it just shifts the burden from low earners to high earners, and the high earners do not wish to bear the burden.

[@CRABKoko]

@@Eelis0 Amsterdam doesn't have as high of a native Black population as the USA does. I suspect that, if Amsterdam did, they would be as reluctant to build housing as white americans are. Its a lot easier to build a nice society when you don't have anti-blackness driving folks to vote against their own interests.

[@ellaraykondrat]

he's not heavy, he's my brother

[@empiricalmiracle8592]

Oh no, won't somebody think of the high earners?

[@torrinmaag5331]

I think his persuasion is far more extreme than social housing

[@norman_5623]

@@CRABKoko You've got the causation backwards. Amsterdam (and most of Western Europe) doesn't have as high a poor working class population as the USA does, because their social welfare programs, such as public housing, health care, education, etc., has eliminated the kind of poverty we have. Working-class blacks and whites can live together without racism if they're living together in comfort and prosperity rather than poverty and desperation. I've seen the least racism with teachers, hospital workers, theater people, or other working people with the same interests living together -- often in the same union.

[@fellsmoke]

$400 a month for rent is way way cheap...$1000 a month is a steal.

[@rustyshackleford4801]

He probably meant 4k

[@norman_5623]

I caught that too. :) He's probably thinking back to the numbers he used in his research 30 years ago.

[@jermainec2462]

It's a system that needs to stop it's a system that needs to be broken... And see these processes and systems set in place are the reason why a lot of these rental properties low income housing have violations because nobody's putting a foot down because deep down they don't care in the first place they want the money and that's it they don't give a shit especially since most of those people are black they do not care they want the money...

[@norman_5623]

David Harvey is saying it's not because of greedy landlords or racism, it's because of the system. The purpose of the system can be to provide either housing for people or profits for free-market entrepreneurs. You can't do both. When we *really* needed affordable worker housing, as we did during WWII, we built government-subsidized projects.

[@jermainec2462]

@@norman_5623 you can't tell me this system was put in place and it wasn't any racism involved or conceded, greediness just became a by-product.... And now that we know about the system who is going to take the time to change it... Because the old people in office right now will not ...

[@norman_5623]

@@jermainec2462 There was racism in the US, and also class exploitation. The big debate is which comes first, racism or class. Racism does seem to be an independent force, but the powerful force driving it seems to be economic exploitation. For example, in the American South, the bosses used racism to divide black and white workers and discourage them from organizing. I read studies in Science magazine whcih concluded that people can set aside "racial" and ethnic differences when they work together on a common mission, like peace in Northern Ireland or South Africa.

[@jermainec2462]

@@norman_5623 yes we can set aside differences but the question is do certain people want to set aside differences or do they want things to remain the same you got a lot of people who think that people of European descent are the elites and they are the better race so you have to change a lot of people's mind frame and way of thinking... That's on top of a lot of people in society being brainwashed... That's what we need to overcome...

[@norman_5623]

@@jermainec2462 if you demonstrate to people that they are better off when they set aside differences and work together, in housing, education, or health care, for example, then some of them will get the message. It's easier if you demonstrate it at the right time, when they're going to school, for example. Or when they're looking for housing and you show them successful integrated housing projects.

[@taloralexanderwilliams1477]

I think this way too haha

[@Dan-DJCc]

It is a subsidy to employers. Socialism for the owning class. Controlled maintenance of a workforce held in reserve to keep all other wages down.

[@fellsmoke]

One figure I heard...40% of homeless people have jobs.

[@rachellee5818]

😢

[@Dustin_Bins]

I recently heard a story about a homeless person who was a manager of a certain sub-sandwich store, which btw is shuttering it's doors. I assume because there wasn't enough profit for this company to have a store in that location (which had other buildings which were already shuttered due to failures.) This sad fact is way more common then we expect and only getting worse as capitalism's failure worsens.

[@keycuz]

Im homeless and working. Only way to save money, 15 grand and i'll buy a bit of land.

[@fellsmoke]

Yep... buy land...

[@kevinschmidt2210]

So then Baltimore was too bankrupt to fail? LOL! Great strategy for a bailout! Borrow away!

[@clarestucki5151]

Harvey's "affordable housing" terminology is code talk for "housing paid for by other than the people who live in it".

[@roswellsatterwhite3906]

Conservatives believe in “housing paid for by others” too, because when you don’t house people you get crime, and then they argue for tough on crime policy. You just want the more expensive housing form with the added punishment in the form of jails and prisons.

[@MariaMMCardoso]

Isn't it super simple? Why not to assure basic needs like housing, health, food and education for all, together with all needed infrastucture like electricity, water, sewage, garbage collection, roads and communications. From this level up, it's a free for all capitalism. If somebody can go on holidays to some paradisic island and the other can't, or buy a car and the other can't, what's the problem? This implies that work needs to be mandatory for every single able person. Oh, but I need my freedom not to work! Well, are you free from not paying taxes? or free from living in the streets if you can't find a job? Which freedom do you value the most: to have your basic needs met or your laziness being indulged?

[@norman_5623]

The problem is that we have to organize working people to do it, and our ruling classes are protecting their greedy self-interest by preventing that organization. Our politicians seem to have sidetracked us into identity politics. Jen Pan at Jacobin was describing how in health care, instead of organizing for single payer, we have government programs directed at every minority ethnic group imaginable -- politicians will set up a program to provide health care to the Asian community, not because it's an efficient way to provide health care, but because it's a good way for a politician to get votes from an identifiable group of voters.

[@sirmclovin9184]

That won't work because of power dynamics. If you can make money by taking away people's public housing and you have the power to do so (because you bought the politicians), you will do it. And if you don't, someone else like you will.

[@richardhelfman903]

Sounds like a class-based socialist revolution is necessary to alleviate the rotten conditions that abound. Nothing new there. But where is the political organization - with the potent individuals therein, what used to be called the revolutionary cadre - to bring it about? Certainly not among those who focus on identity this and identity that instead of CLASS this and CLASS that.

[@norman_5623]

I agree. We've moved the basis for organizing from class to identity. Identity has returned short-term benefits but it's kept us divided and competing with each other in the long run.

[@JuanMercado91]

Someone needs to edit these videos. He has great information and insight but it's not easy to follow along and i think its accessibility would be greatly enhanced with some editing.

[@CRABKoko]

It must suck to be this man's age, and to realize that you wasted so many years as a bourgeois reformist, and now that you know all this, you aren't in a position to do anything about the problems.

[@alfred-vz8ti]

system not broken. it was built that way. if you don't like it, start a revolution. not necessary to shoot anyone, unless they resist.

[@michaelrussell7806]

lol good luck

[@Love4pizza.]

#UBI....................................