Posted by Demos on August 18, 2009 at 06:48:59:
In Reply to: Housing Question posted by David Searles on August 16, 2009 at 07:02:27:
Thanks for calling attention to the Engels' work.
In regards to housing, which today we categorize as 'private and personal' it works, as long as you can afford to 'own' or 'rent'. If not, as Balzac said, "you are free to sleep under the bridge'. Or in your car or cardboard box or unsafe 'public shelter'.
The 'American Dream' is becoming clearly just that. A Dream. Banks own and we, as workers who create every
thing that goes into building that dwelling, get to pay 30 years of interest. Seldom does the cycle of debt end, with frequent moves & new mortgages to bear.
Like everything else in this society, under Capitalism, workers work and all the hours they toil, all the mountains of wealth they produce gets them very little. The majority is skimmed off by a small class of owners, a very neat trick of legalized theft called 'wages'. Protection of that system is provided by what is laughingly called 'our form of government'. If the 'public' (a euphemism for We The Working People)raises a heads and begs for anything (quality & accessible healthcare, good schools, safe streets and roads, clean environment, Congress & the White House
are there to make sure nothing- or next to nothing- gets done.
Which ultimately brings me to this point: The "government" of Capitalism is no democracy. It is wholly owned & managed to serve & protect the interests of the owning class, the system of private profit and exploitation. The rational approach to housing- or healthcare, the environment or the basic approach to work and production of goods & serviuces-
would mean scaping Capitalism, making it Constitutionally illegal, and replaced with Civic and Economic Democracy. (Some call it socialism, but whatever its called, we need to build true democracy not the tragic sham we needlessly & dangerously suffer today.)
Demos