There is a similarity, in the discussion here, with the discussion of the housing crisis in Britain. The Narodnik sees the problem as being that the peasants have too little land, just as the discussion of the housing crisis is undertaken on the basis that there are not enough houses. But, the real issue, in both cases, is that there is not enough land, or not enough houses for sale at prices that those that need them can afford!
“By ignoring this fact you ignore the capitalist mode of production on which basis alone the sale became possible. By ignoring this you take the side of that bourgeois society and turn into a plain political jobber who argues about whether much or little land should be on sale. You do not see that the very fact of the redemption by purchase proves that “capital has already taken complete control” over the “minds” of those in whose interests the “great” Reform was carried through, who themselves accomplished it...” (p 367)
And, the same is true of the housing crisis. The problem is not caused by a shortage of houses. There are, in fact, 50% more homes per head of population, in Britain, today, than in the 1970's, when prices were much lower. The problem is rather that a large proportion of the population cannot afford the houses for sale, even with artificially low mortgage rates, whilst a small number of speculators are able to buy up property, in order to obtain capital gains from its rising prices, as well as to obtain rents, to use as second homes, and so on. Prior to the 1980's, and the soaring property prices created under the Thatcher regime by the abolition of credit controls and scrapping of financial regulation, in order to stimulate this speculation, most young, single people took it for granted that they would live at home with their parents until they married. But, since the 1980's, part of the cause of this speculation, and at the same time a consequence of it, was the creation of the idea that everyone must have their own home, more or less on leaving school, just as in the previous decade everyone had been encouraged to believe they had to have their own car, as soon as they were 17. The notable factor is the sharp rise in single home owners.
The population rose very slowly, from 54.1 million in 1970 to 60 million in 2009 – an average 0.27% increase every year. However, the number of households grew more rapidly over the period, from 18.0 million in 1970 to 25.6 million in 2009. The average yearly increase in household numbers was 0.85% (note that this is a steeper rise than from 2000 to 2009). The rising number of households reflects a trend for smaller households, with more people living alone and in small families. In 1971, 79% of UK households were multi-occupancy, 70% were occupied by married couples. Only 19% were occupied by single people, with a further 2% occupied by lone parents. By 2011, those figures had changed drastically. Only 59% were multi-occupancy, the number of married couples had dropped to just 40% with a further 12% cohabiting, and another 7% other multi-occupants. By contrast, the number of homes occupied by one person had almost doubled to 33%, with 8% occupied by lone parents.
Its fairly obvious that its twice as hard for a single person to afford to buy or rent a home than it is for a couple, and even more difficult for someone still in their teens or early twenties, with their correspondingly lower incomes, to do so than for someone in their late twenties. Yet, as attempts are made to continue to inflate property demand, these comparisons with social behaviour in previous decades are simply ignored.
Nor is the problem lack of land. Residential property occupies only 1% of the land area, contrary to the lies spread by the racists about Britain being full up or overcrowded. In fact, residential property occupies only half as much land area as is taken up by golf courses! Meanwhile, vast swathes of rural land remains in the hands of large landowners like the Prince of Wales, and Duke of Westminster who are also paid large subsidies for doing so. As they hoard this land, aided and abetted by the monopolistic conditions created by the Green Belt policy it acts to keep land prices inflated by huge amounts.
“If the 65,000 "farms" of under two acres are subtracted as economically meaningless, what you have is 50 per cent of the population, the taxpayers, paying 0.28 per cent of the population to hold the bulk of the country's landed assets and to make those plentiful assets scarce. The result is that the cost of a building site is two or three times what it should be for 70 per cent of the population. This is Britain's great property swindle.”
But, all these conditions exist because land and housing is sold as a commodity, rather than being provided on the basis of need. Worse, as the Tories encouraged massive speculation in the 1980's, and inflated the money supply to go with it, and as the conservative social-democrats of New Labour continued that strategy in the early 2000's, land and houses were just one type of commodity that was turned into a speculative asset demanded not for its use value, but purely for its ability to produce capital gains, as was the case with shares, bonds, art, wine and anything else where such gambling on rising future prices could be undertaken, much in the way of the Tulipmania.
“In short, the cause—in the Marxist’s view—lies neither in policy, nor in the state, nor in “society,” but in the present system of Russia’s economic organisation; the point is not that “shrewd people” or “tricksters” fish in troubled waters, but that the “people” constitute two opposite, mutually exclusive, classes: “in society all active forces add up to two equally operating, mutually opposite ones.”” (p 368)
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