Jordie van den Lamb
The housing crisis boils down to housing being too expensive. Housing costs have skyrocketed, making it increasingly difficult for average Australians to secure stable, quality housing.
To be clear, I don’t like looking at housing purely as a market issue. I believe housing is a fundamental human right and not a commodity to be traded for profit. But that’s unfortunately the reality under our current capitalist system. So a good first step would be the government taking a much more active role in housing provision. There’s a prevalent narrative that governments don’t or can’t build housing, And it’s true that currently, they don’t. But they absolutely could if they wanted to. The fact is, they’re choosing not to.
Public housing also needs to be a core part of the solution now. By increasing the stock of public housing, we increase supply, effectively reducing overall housing costs. And meanwhile, we also build up a public housing sector that isn’t subject to the same profit-seeking that drives the private market.
Ultimately, we need to stop seeing the housing crisis as an inevitable outcome of market forces and start seeing it as a policy choice. It’s pretty simple when you think about it — with the right political will, the government builds houses for people who need them, not for speculators and property hoarders.
There’s a meme going around comparing antihomeless architecture in capitalist and socialist societies. Under capitalism, park benches and other things incorporate hostile design to prevent homeless people from sleeping there. But under socialism, antihomeless architecture is simply public housing. That’s the core of it. In a socialist system, the government builds housing for people who need it.
La suite est à lire sur: jacobin.com
Auteur: Jordie van den Lamb
