by J. Steelman
Since the start of the pandemic, the housing crisis has taken on a new dimension. Previously, the housing crisis was defined largely by homelessness and gentrification, today an eviction wave is looming. Of course, all the conditions of the former still exist and will certainly be exacerbated by present crisis. Thus far throughout the pandemic 90+% of renters (NMHC.org) have been able to pay all or part of their rent by the end of the month. The Federal Unemployment Compensation extension has been key to helping people make their rent and the biweekly schedule of payments is likely the cause of payments being spread out over the month. Even with the additional help, late payments and partial payments are still grounds for eviction. The failure of Congress to pass a comprehensive relief bill before their recess means that even if a bill is agreed upon as soon as they are back in session it will be mid to late September before any financial assistance makes its way to households.
In the interim, President Trump issued an executive order that continues the Federal Unemployment Compensation extension, but at a rate of $300 per week, half as much as the previous $600 per week. This means that more and more families will struggle to make their rent or mortgage payments. The executive order also failed to adequately address the coming wave of evictions. It was reported that Trump extended the eviction moratorium of the CARES act. Instead the Order only states that the Department of Health and Human Services and CDC “shall consider whether any measures temporarily halting residential evictions of any tenants for failure to pay rent are reasonably necessary to prevent the further spread of COVID-19…” (Executive Order on Fighting the Spread of COVID-19 by Providing Assistance to Renters and Homeowners). The executive order further goes on to state that the Treasury and Department of Housing and Urban Development will identify available Federal funds to provide temporary financial assistance to renters and homeowners. Which is a far cry from a moratorium on evictions.
On 8/25, Governor Wolf stated that he did not have the authority to extend the Pennsylvania state moratorium on evictions which is set to expire on 8/31. Already landlords are sending out Notices to Quit and preparing to file eviction lawsuits on 9/1. Pennsylvania has established a $150 million program to help people who have lost their job as well as those who have seen their incomes drop at least 30% pay their rent. LNP reports that many landlords refuse to participate in the program which caps the monthly amount the State will pay out at $750, which is well under the average price of rent (LNP 8/18 “Is PA on the verge of a wave of evictions”). While the eviction crisis today is especially acute, it stems from the same conditions that gives rise to the other aspects of the housing crisis.
In response to the various manifestations of the housing crisis, activists have proposed various fixes or solutions. From housing the homeless by government order, to legal mandates for affordable housing, to rent control, public housing, to canceling rent for the duration of the pandemic/economic crisis. The common thread that runs through all of these demands is the underlying principle that “Housing is a Human Right”. It is precisely this principle we wish to take up.
We should state from the outset that we are fighting for a society where the principle “From each according to their ability, to each according to their need” can be fully realized. That means that housing as well as all other products produced by society would be distributed according to need. However, framing the housing question in terms of rights obscures the issue and gets us no closer to a solution. Firstly, rights are always conditioned by the economic mode of production. Under capitalism, the right to assemble is constricted by the right to private property. Likewise the right to free press is constricted, even in the age of the internet, by the capital necessary to run a cable TV station or large scale printing operation. Everywhere, even in the most democratic countries, democratic or legal rights are constrained by the economic condition of production (The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky – Lenin page 20 and 22).
Secondly, rights are largely legal constructs, that is are recognized within an existing legal framework, a legal framework that has arisen on the basis of a given economic system, in this case the capitalist system. Under capitalism, the capitalist has the right to exploit the worker and “the house owner, in his capacity as a capitalist, has not only the right but by reason of competition, to a certain extent also the duty of ruthlessly making as much out of his property in house rent as he possibly can (The Housing Question – Engels pg 42). That we may not recognize these rights as legitimate doesn’t change the fact that these rights are upheld by capitalist society. Thirdly, in the case that housing is a human right and the house owner has the right to obtain as much rent as possible, how is this contradiction solved? Between equal rights, force decides (Capital Vol 1 – Marx page 344). How then should we understand the housing question? On the basis of social conditions as they are, that is on the basis of political economy.
Housing is a commodity, that is houses are produced for sale, not for the immediate use by the builder or land-owner. As a commodity it is subject to the same economic laws as all other commodities in general and landed property in particular (The Housing Question – Engels page 20). The price of any commodity, including housing, is determined by its cost of production, that is by the labor-time (both past and present labor-time) necessary for its production, however, it is by no means equal to its cost of production (Wage Labor and Capital – Marx page 25).
Thus the price of housing, or what is the same thing, rent, is determined by the building and maintenance costs, the value of the land, and the relation of supply and demand (The Housing Question – Engels page 20). This price is realized with the sale of the commodity. Different commodities can be consumed in different lengths of time which makes it possible to rent, or sell the commodity piece-meal. Instead of receiving the full price of the house immediately the house-owner instead receives the price over time (ibid page 78-79). The rent paid by the tenant covers the interest on the building costs, repairs, the average of bad debts and unpaid rents, covers occasional periods when the house is vacant, pays off the building capital which is invested in the house, as well as paying ground-rent (ibid page 20). Interest and ground-rent are but two forms of surplus-value, the value created by the worker above and beyond their wages.
All surplus-value is created in the production process and is afterwards divided up among the whole capitalist class, (we will take up the issue of ground-rent and interest and their relationship to surplus-value in a future article) including the land-owner or house-owner (ibid page 27). While commodities have been produced under previous modes of production, it has always been the exception. Under the capitalism commodity production is the rule. Capitalists set in motion wage workers (living labor) and machines (dead labor) to produce a given commodity. Despite the vast cooperation of the working class to produce the goods and services society needs to reproduce itself, the capitalists remain the exclusive owners of the commodities produced. Housing, as a commodity, being subject to the laws of commodity exchange, can only be solved by abolishing commodity production, that is to say the solution to the housing crisis “lies in the abolition of the capitalist mode of production and the appropriation of all the means of subsistence and instruments of labor by the working class itself (ibid page 71).
An objection may be raised that while abolishing capitalism is all well and good, the crisis must be addressed in the here and now. While we won’t specifically address individual policies at the moment, since there are many, we can address some common themes. On the one hand, there are those who advocate for more funds for public housing, including raising taxes on large corporations and the “1%”. The state, as the “organized collective power of the possessing classes” (ibid page 65), has proven itself incapable, unwilling, or both, to provide sufficient numbers of public housing units. In fact, from 1992 to 2012 US housing officials got rid of or tore down 285,000 public housing units, and only replaced about 1/6 (BBC news report quoted from Breaking the Chains “Not just rich people and cafes: toward a socialist understanding of gentrification”). Furthermore, taxes are derived from the same surplus-value the capitalists extract from the working class. Meaning the continued exploitation of the working class as a whole.
Some more radical proposals demand that the State nationalize all housing and distribute it either freely or more commonly at a set percentage of income. Since commodity prices are determined by their cost of production in labor-time, wages, as the price of labor-power is also determined by its cost of production. This cost of production includes cost of food, housing, clothing etc. While there are certain requirements to sustaining human-life, the value of labor-power, is also socially determined. Today, we would consider cell phones, internet access, among other things as necessary to the reproduction of the worker as an individual as well as raising the next generation of workers. The general reduction of the cost of rent or eliminating rent altogether, lowers the cost of producing an individual worker and their family. This will result in a decrease in wages approximately equal to the average housing cost in a given area (The Housing Question – Engels page 46). While it is true that the workers would still have a house, the secondary consequences of housing as a universal right would negatively affect the working class. For instance the supply of land would be severely restricted, while the overall demand for non-housing land, would still remain around the same, and in some cases we could expect it to rise since previously housing units could be bought and demolished to make way for restaurants, shops, or even factories. The increased cost of land would further raise prices as cost of production increased. Decreasing wages also has the effect of increasing the power of capital over the working class. Eliminating ground-rent and interest has no bearing on the overall total amount of surplus-value produced, since they are only distributions of that surplus-value.
Decreasing wages, however, means increasing profits for the remainder of the capitalist class, since wages and profits are inversely proportional (Value, Price, and Profit – Marx page 49). Even though, in this case the workers standard of living would remain the same, they would nevertheless find their social position fall relative to the capitalists, or in other words, even though the worker financial situation remained the same, the result would be increasing inequality between the capitalists and the workers (ibid page 51).
Of course, this does not mean that we should sit on our hands and watch as our families, friends, and neighbors are thrown out onto the street. It only means that the housing crisis has been going on since at least 1872 when Engels wrote The Housing Question. In each iteration of the housing crisis the particulars were different, but the underlying foundations of the crisis were the same. The housing crisis today is especially acute due to the dual crises: the coronavirus pandemic and the economic crisis. The immediate struggle against evictions, while necessary, must be combined with a broader struggle against capitalism. Whether a tsunami of evictions occurs, an extension of the eviction moratorium, or even a rent cancellation law, we can expect numbers of small-time landlords to fail and a furious escalation of gentrification. Given that the drive of capitalist production, by way of competition, is to obtain as much profit as possible, it makes sense that “affordable housing” while still profitable, is passed over, especially in “developing” cities in favor of luxury apartments or condos.
In the current moment, preventing evictions is the task facing the working class movement as it relates to the housing question. That struggle takes many forms: from organizing tenants in multi-family units for rent strikes, to organizing the community to struggle for protections such as eviction moratoriums, payment plans, or canceling the rent, to blockading eviction court proceedings or evictions themselves, to rehousing those people who have been evicted. We must remain clear-sighted about the nature of the struggle against evictions. While this is a strictly defensive struggle, the organizations forged during this crisis can, under more favorable conditions, begin the struggle to overthrow the capitalist mode of production.
Housing must be understood on the basis of political economy. However, we realize that the slogan “Housing as a Human Right” is a symptom of the contradiction within capitalist society, namely the contradiction between social production and private appropriation. The working class can only rely on itself for protection from the tyranny of the capitalist class and must organize in mass organizations encompassing the broadest layers of the class. The housing question can only be solved by abolishing private property and the expropriation of the capitalist class is only possible through class struggle.