Housing

[amateur51]

http://www.southbucks.gov.uk/article...ing-permission

Next stop Heathrow...

ah those tantalising priorities - pass the poppadums and have one yourself!

[Serial_Apologist]

ah those tantalising priorities - pass the poppadums and have one yourself!

Thanks, but I think I'll have the poppacorn, if it's all the same to you ams!

[amateur51]

Thanks, but I think I'll have the poppacorn, if it's all the same to you ams!

Wor Eric loves a good ruby, S_A

[ahinton]

There is a great difference between private and public ownership as regards the potential for wider control than the inadequately supervised, never elected maverick individual, whether landlord or not, and that is why the language used in discussing this issue is important if options are not to be foreclosed by "vested demoralisation". By which I mean that private interests, helped by a popular press, (and the chaos and anarchy they can cause if used as models for the ideal), are capable of justifying their own privilegeing in the scheme of a mixed economy heavily geared towards their own interests. Public ownership, which unlike private landlords can, with "people's power", be made democratically accountable, can instead be portrayed as just another institution feathering their own nests. One wonders why anyone without a vested interest, declared or otherwise, would want to do so, but jumping on any and all suggestions without offering alternatives for consideration, is part and parcel of the ideological control some actively give their consent to, for reasons of their own that are rarely explained.

As a matter of interest, are you opposed to private ownership of homes - or indeed any other buildings - in principle and, if so, on what basis might you seek to distingish (if indeed you would) between homes and other assets in terms of your views on their ownership?

I for one don't think Mrs Thatcher gave a damn about the fact that the sales income to local authorities from selling off council properties was way below market values - markedly in contrast with today's "market rents" btw - so long as the buyers had bought into the wider dream of home ownership, which could then be passed on to succeeding generations as part of the society's collective DNA. It probably wouldn't have passed her notice that the chance one day of entrapping home owners in negative equity would provide another means of instilling class collaboration through fear: you go on strike over a wage claim, working conditions, plant closure or compulsory redundancy, and you lose your home, buddy!

I don't think that she gave a damn about that either - and this is one of the ways in which that entire business was mishandled; tht said, given that she appears not even to have given this aspect of the matter any thought, I have doubts about her having based her policy on this on the opportunity to instil calss collaboration through fear, but that's only my opinion and I may be wrong about that.

[Serial_Apologist]

As a matter of interest, are you opposed to private ownership of homes - or indeed any other buildings - in principle and, if so, on what basis might you seek to distingish (if indeed you would) between homes and other assets in terms of your views on their ownership?

I hadn't given it the thought I should; but when I come to think about it, I probably am. In the end I believe everything should probably be free at the point of need - like the NHS; but leaving aside arguments to the effect that such a system would be taken advantage of by the greedy, when greed comes as a combination of the constantly upheld prospect of uncertainty and insecurity with the human model suiting the status quo based on aggressive competition, the best we can do is pool certain designated commodities such as property under common ownership but, more importantly, since this is NOT how things have been done in the past, common control, thereby locking people into collective as opposed merely to individual responsibility and wellbeing.

I don't think that she gave a damn about that either - and this is one of the ways in which that entire business was mishandled; that said, given that she appears not even to have given this aspect of the matter any thought, I have doubts about her having based her policy on this on the opportunity to instil class collaboration through fear, but that's only my opinion and I may be wrong about that.

Well you may be prepared to give Thatcher and her cronies the benefit of the doubt, whereas I can well visualise them sitting down to formulate the means whereby socialism would, in her words, be destroyed forever, and the pacing of the policies that would bring this about without provoking a backlash - one that was pretty close, but from which she and her government were effectively saved by Galtieri's invasion of the Malvinas, which I would guess she did not conspire to bring about, though evidence to the contrary wouldn't surprise me!

[ahinton]

I hadn't given it the thought I should; but when I come to think about it, I probably am. In the end I believe everything should probably be free at the point of need - like the NHS; but leaving aside arguments to the effect that such a system would be taken advantage of by the greedy, when greed comes as a combination of the constantly upheld prospect of uncertainty and insecurity with the human model suiting the status quo based on aggressive competition, the best we can do is pool certain designated commodities such as property under common ownership but, more importantly, since this is NOT how things have been done in the past, common control, thereby locking people into collective as opposed merely to individual responsibility and wellbeing.

Thanks for this. My next question is "where would you stop?". Whilst I have no idea in any case how local authorities could possibly be able to afford to acquire, insure or maintain all residential property, one might ask why only housing? What (if anything) else that's not currently owned by local or national government might you advocate being acquired and managed / maintained / &c. by either?

Well you may be prepared to give Thatcher and her cronies the benefit of the doubt, whereas I can well visualise them sitting down to formulate the means whereby socialism would, in her words, be destroyed forever, and the pacing of the policies that would bring this about without provoking a backlash - one that was pretty close, but from which she and her government were effectively saved by Galtieri's invasion of the Malvinas, which I would guess she did not conspire to bring about, though evidence to the contrary wouldn't surprise me!

I'd actually give them very little benefit of the doubt, frankly, but any plan to attempt the permanent destruction of socialism would have been utterly laughable; one might as well hatch a plan for the permanent destruction of capitalism for all the success that it couldn't and wouldn't achieve!

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks for this. My next question is "where would you stop?". Whilst I have no idea in any case how local authorities could possibly be able to afford to acquire, insure or maintain all residential property, one might ask why only housing? What (if anything) else that's not currently owned by local or national government might you advocate being acquired and managed / maintained / &c. by either?

Well I would stop at consumer goods. Why not? Living acommodation is a basic requirement like health care, food and water. How much stuff people have on the other hand relates to values which vary from class to class, era to era. In the end it's all relative: affordability is only a function of costs, which are variable - stuff could be made to last rather than as cheaply as profitably conforming to what passes as fashion.

[ahinton]

Well I would stop at consumer goods. Why not? Living acommodation is a basic requirement like health care, food and water. How much stuff people have on the other hand relates to values which vary from class to class, era to era. In the end it's all relative: affordability is only a function of costs, which are variable - stuff could be made to last rather than as cheaply as profitably conforming to what passes as fashion.

OK, well that's clear enough. How, though, would you imagine that local authorities (the organisations whom I presume you would advocate as owners / managers / maintainers / insurers of such property) could possibly acquire the funds to finance the purchase of all residential property not already in local authority hands and then to manage, maintain and insure it? I have no idea what proportion of all UK homes is currently in local authority hands but I imagine that it's a very small one indeed and would even have been relatively small before the implementation of the Thatcher buy-your-own policy, so the eye-wateringly enormous number of squillions of pounds required just to acquire it in the first place would surely put it massively out of the reach of local authorities, wouldn't it? - and the cost of staff required to do all of this (even if sufficient of them could be hired) would render an impossible task even more impossible!

[Serial_Apologist]

OK, well that's clear enough. How, though, would you imagine that local authorities (the organisations whom I presume you would advocate as owners / managers / maintainers / insurers of such property) could possibly acquire the funds to finance the purchase of all residential property not already in local authority hands and then to manage, maintain and insure it? I have no idea what proportion of all UK homes is currently in local authority hands but I imagine that it's a very small one indeed and would even have been relatively small before the implementation of the Thatcher buy-your-own policy, so the eye-wateringly enormous number of squillions of pounds required just to acquire it in the first place would surely put it massively out of the reach of local authorities, wouldn't it? - and the cost of staff required to do all of this (even if sufficient of them could be hired) would render an impossible task even more impossible!

The issue I'm trying to get across is, how much is anything worth anyway? What determines that value? Not the number of hours socially necessary to produce the value of the lion's share of which the boss has in part pocketed for himself and his nearest and dearest, because he's making more of that than he deserves by gambling with it on the stock markets. One doesn't have to be a religious fanatic to realise we're all one way or another implicated in this just by banking in the main high street banks or having a reasonable flat located in London because one's parents bought at an affordable time in an area that would go up in the desireability stakes being where it was and is, rather than Middlesbrough. Who looks after the most important gifts or acquirements in life doesn't need to be a central government or local authority - it could be a "people's bank". To be frank, what I'm hoping for is a massive collective change of heart - the sort that Lenin talked about when he said that revolutions come about when the ruling class is no longer able to rule and the masses are no longer prepared to be ruled by them: the sort that has already occurred in my own case. That time would appear to be right now - what is absent is what we used to call "the subjective factor", i.e. a countervailing force ready to take over. I alone don't happen to possess the means to effect change, only the mindset, and unless they pump me full of legalised psychotropic drugs they can't take that away from me. To be frank, I wouldn't give a damn how much my flat and its contents were worth, were it not for that worth meaning something defined by capitalism in terms of the security it purportedly affords me, especially should or when ageing forces me to sell up and move into sheltered accommodation or an old people's home. I used to have a notice in my recorded music cabinet saying "Dear Burglar, take whatever you think will enrich you spiritually or materially, but please leave the Bartok, Schoenberg and Miles Davis albums". I could well be the Fool on the Hill referred to in the Beatles' song of that name from the Seargent Pepper album. When it comes down to it, what am I, or anyone else for that matter, really worth? The fact that, in the end this comes down to money - how much of the stuff I have or can make for somebody else - is probably what drives some people into religions; because there has to be someone out there who values me beyond my wallet or my capacity to sire future generations of consumers!

[teamsaint]

And that is surely the post of the day

Fantastic stuff. S_A.


Many thanks

[Beef Oven!]

And that is surely the post of the day

Fantastic stuff. S_A.


Many thanks

It is a wonderful set of ideas, but has he not heard of paragraphs? I lost my place in it a few times.

[Richard Barrett]

the best we can do is pool certain designated commodities such as property under common ownership but, more importantly, since this is NOT how things have been done in the past, common control, thereby locking people into collective as opposed merely to individual responsibility and wellbeing.

That isn't quite so, however: there was a time in human (pre)history before ownership of homes, at least if we're to accept the implications of the structure of some of the earliest cities like Çatalhöyük in present-day Turkey, which "had no apparent social classes, as no houses with distinctive features (belonging to royalty or religious hierarchy, for example) have been found so far. The most recent investigations also reveal little social distinction based on gender, with men and women receiving equivalent nutrition and seeming to have equal social status" - I've always thought that the argument that people are and always have been greedy and selfish would rather make the origin of things like urban life and agriculture rather improbable, since both depend so crucially on cooperation and collective planning.

I've never seen the point of owning the building one lives in.

[Serial_Apologist]

That isn't quite so, however: there was a time in human (pre)history before ownership of homes, at least if we're to accept the implications of the structure of some of the earliest cities like Çatalhöyük in present-day Turkey, which "had no apparent social classes, as no houses with distinctive features (belonging to royalty or religious hierarchy, for example) have been found so far. The most recent investigations also reveal little social distinction based on gender, with men and women receiving equivalent nutrition and seeming to have equal social status" - I've always thought that the argument that people are and always have been greedy and selfish would rather make the origin of things like urban life and agriculture rather improbable, since both depend so crucially on cooperation and collective planning.

I've never seen the point of owning the building one lives in.

Fair enough - I was citing common ownership as practised within the past few generations, but this and doubtless other instances is useful data to back up an alternative perspective.

[teamsaint]

That isn't quite so, however: there was a time in human (pre)history before ownership of homes, at least if we're to accept the implications of the structure of some of the earliest cities like Çatalhöyük in present-day Turkey, which "had no apparent social classes, as no houses with distinctive features (belonging to royalty or religious hierarchy, for example) have been found so far. The most recent investigations also reveal little social distinction based on gender, with men and women receiving equivalent nutrition and seeming to have equal social status" - I've always thought that the argument that people are and always have been greedy and selfish would rather make the origin of things like urban life and agriculture rather improbable, since both depend so crucially on cooperation and collective planning.

I've never seen the point of owning the building one lives in.

Interesting stuff, RB.

I recently visited some of these places.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broch

And they are amazing.

However, I did a little bit of reading around them, because there seems to be some sort of orthodoxy, which fits in with modern views of class, gender, social structure etc, that these were houses built for Higher class people , local lords or whatever.

But actually, there is some discussion about this, and there is something about the buildings and their locations that feels rather more collaborative, somehow, in a way that I cant quite place.

Probably not the sort of idea that governments want on display, in any case.

[Richard Barrett]

Interesting stuff, RB.
I recently visited some of these places.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broch

I'd never even heard of those before... I haven't been to Çatalhöyük, but there's a fascinating book about it published in 2006 called The Leopard's Tale by Ian Hodder (one of the archaeologists working there) which goes into some detail about how a social structure is inferred from the remains of the city, and what debates there have been about this.