A Theory of Housing Provision under Capitalism

“Drawing on sophisticated Marxist categories of analysis, Australia’s premier scholar of urban studies shows how complex flows of capital impact intricate processes of class formation and fragmentation. Berry’s brilliant insights into contemporary urban power dynamics demonstrate the relevance of classical sociological perspectives for our globalizing world. Highly recommended!”— Manfred B. Steger, Professor of Sociology at The University of Hawai’i-Manoa, author of Globalization: A Very Short Introduction 6th Ed. (2020)
“The use value of theory shines brilliantly in Mike Berry’s realist reading of Marx’s materialist dialectics. Amid world-wide wails and finger-pointing over the price of housing, this eminently readable tome by an exceptionally well-regarded housing analyst accurately casts the home in structural terms as a vehicle of the advance of capital.”— Anitra Nelson, Honorary Principal Fellow, the Informal Urbanism Research Hub (InfUr-), University of Melbourne, Australia and author of Beyond Money (2022)
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.
Mike Berry is Emeritus Professor of Urban Studies and Public Policy in the Centre for Urban Research at RMIT University, Australia.