The Slow-Burning Fuses

Abstract

The current housing crises have entrenched origins, intertwined in changing demographics and the power balance between capital and labour. Capital, although increasingly divided between landed and industrial capital, was dominant in the nineteenth century but, in the twentieth century, the Labour movement’s industrial and political clout helped to produce extensive state intervention in the housing market. This state involvement has been rolled back in the last forty years and the market—characterised by privatisation, commodification and financialisation—is now the primary mechanism determining housing outcomes. 82% of the UK housing stock is privately owned and subject to market forces with the remainder, labelled ‘social housing’, increasingly being driven towards mimicking the market. There are seven elements in the slow burning fuses that ignited into the contemporary housing crises: building industry capacity; the growth in private renting; housing financialisation; the demise and stigmatisation of social housing, especially the homes supplied by local government; lack of investment in the existing housing stock; demographic change and the planning system.