The contradictions of residential capitalism
notes from the Spanish experience
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.46661/rec.11764Keywords:
housing, rentierism, house rent, capitalist productionAbstract
The provision of housing in capitalist society is traversed by an unsolvable contradiction between two opposing forms of accumulation: capitalist production (of a competitive and deflationary nature) and rent extraction (of a monopolistic and inflationary nature). The marked rentier character of the real estate business manifests in marked contradictions in the housing market. Residential rentierism requires the reproduction of scarcity to keep prices high, making the housing crisis a chronic issue. This, in addition to generating recurrent social conflicts, also works against the dynamics of economic growth in capitalist societies by increasing the cost of living. To alleviate the contradictions of residential capitalism, both in their political and economic facets, the capitalist state regularly intervenes in the housing market, but the underlying problem is never definitively resolved, but transformed, giving rise to new manifestations of the underlying contradiction. This article elaborates this theoretical approach through the example of the evolution of Spanish residential capitalism, from the 19th century to the present.
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