This book provides the first coherent Marxist analysis of the central importance of housing in the social reproduction of capitalism as a whole. Rather than consigning housing to the sidelines, Berry argues that the circulation of capital and revenues though housing and the built environment helps explain how the capital-labour relation constrains housing outcomes while also being reproduced on an extended scale. He shows how housing is provided by the intervention of building, property and interest-bearing capital fractions; how the land question can be explained by a theory of urban land rent, drawing on Marx's categories of differential and monopoly rent; how housing is vital to the extended reproduction of labour power, while also creating a semi-separate sphere of 'home' in which gender and demographic factors overlay and accentuate social class position. The modes, impact and drivers of state intervention in housing provision are seen to modify the patterns and pace of capital circulation through housing and the urban built environment with implications for shifts in class fragmentation and power relations.
Author(s): Mike Berry
Series: Marx, Engels, and Marxisms
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 253
City: Cham
Titles Published
Titles Forthcoming
Acknowledgments
Praise for A Theory of Housing Provision under Capitalism
Contents
About the Author
List of Figures
1 Introduction: Building from First Principles
1.1 Preamble
1.2 A Note on Method
1.3 Structure
References
Part I Housing as a Commodity
2 Housing as a Use Value
2.1 What Is Housing?
2.2 Housing as Exchange Value
References
3 The Production of Housing
References
4 The Realisation of Housing
4.1 Exchange
4.2 Financing
References
Part II Housing as a Land-use
5 The Territorial Imperative
Reference
6 A Theory of Urban Land Rent
References
7 Landed Property: An Historical Excursion
References
Part III Housing and Social Reproduction
8 The Extended Reproduction of Labour Power
References
9 The Social Construction of the Home 1: Culture
References
10 The Social Construction of the Home 2: Gender and Age
References
11 Housing and Class in the Neoliberal Era
References
Part IV Housing and the State
12 Housing and the Myth of the ‘Free Market’
References
13 Housing, Wealth and Power
References
14 The Housing-Macro Nexus
References
Part V Navigating the Future
15 The Project: Architect Not Bee
References
16 Countering the Counter-Attack
References
17 Concluding Comments—The Limits to Capital
References
Index
