David B. Shemano wrote: > It is not home ownership, in isolation, that causes more conservative > political attitudes, but just as, if not more importantly, the effort to > acquire home ownership. If you are trying to save for a downpayment, and you > are required to save every extra penny toward that future goal, that enhances > a bourgeois mentality (as well as a sense of distinction/superiority toward > members of your same social class who are more consumption oriented), and > resentment of every dollar paid in taxes which delays the achievement of the > goal.<
Home ownership -- including the effort to acquire home ownership -- doesn't encourage a "bourgeois" mentality. I interpret the latter as the idea that the world owes you a living because you have a lot of financial wealth (whether you got it honestly, though financial wheeling and dealing, through theft, and/or through inheritance). The bourgeois mentality also includes feelings of superiority over those hired (personal servants, etc.) (These attitudes have a material basis in the fact that capitalism gives princely or princessly rewards to those who own financial wealth, no matter how they got it, while allowing them to have a superiority of power over those who have no choice but to work for a living.) What home ownership encourages is the "petty bourgeois" mentality, the "I own it, it's mine, I don't owe anything to society" attitude, including the often-willful ignorance of the benefits provided by such institutions as public education and public health and also religious beliefs about the Benevolence of the Free Market. Home-ownership encourages the worst kind of individualism, though it may be tempered by the neighborhood or condominium association which force people to respect their neighbors (and maintain property values). The latter often goes hand-in-hand with antagonism toward the neighborhood or condominium association. > That is why the American home subsidy program, especially as it developed in > the past 20 years, was so disastrous (from my perspective), because it was > specifically designed to break the link between the effort to acquire a home > and home ownership itself. By enforcing policy to avoid the need to save for > a downpayment, the policy effectively turned the home "purchasers" into > effectively either (1 speculative investors with an option on the house, or > (2) renters paying more for a nominal mortgage than they could have as > renters under a lease agreement -- neither of which is conducive to the > development of Margaret's beloved bourgeois attitudes.< I doubt that the psychological effects of the effort to raise money to may the down-payment on a house last for very long after the house is "purchased" (i.e., some fraction of the house's value starts belonging to the "owner" rather than to the bank). Such attitudes fade after awhile to be replaced by the "this house is my kingdom" attitude that I described above. There's a big difference between the attitudes of a renter from someone who owns some positive fraction of a house even though each person faces mandatory payments (rent, mortgage payments + property taxes).[*] If you're a renter, there's a lasting relationship (often a personal one) with the landlord/lady who is supposed to fix broken plumbing and the like -- or with the landowner's agent (the super). The cost of fixing the plumbing is supposed to be paid for out of the rent. But for an "owner," a plumber has to be hired -- and paid for out of pocket. While a rental apartment is (in the end), the landowner's responsibility, the owned home is that of the (part) owner. That encourages different attitudes. I doubt that the home-ownership subsidies (the mortgage interest deduction, etc.) will be abolished in the near future, since (1) the "middle class" is so important politically (for example, being an important basis for the Teabaggers); and (2) preservation of the idea of the US as a "middle class" country is important to legitimizing the system. (My working definition of "middle class" involves (part) ownership of one's dwelling and no other houses. It combines parts of other classes that are defined instead by relationships to the ownership of means of production.) -- Jim Devine / "Living a life of quiet desperation -- but always with style!" [*] One difference is that home-owners seem less likely to be kicked out of their dwellings for non-payment than renters do. Maybe that's an artifact of the fact that so many home-owners are "under water" or having a hard time making mortgage payments. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
