In November, The Guardian ran a feature on Fresno, California — a portrait relevant to what’s happening all across America. “How One of California’s Cheapest Cities Became Unaffordable” detailed the plight of the half of Fresno’s population that is struggling to stay in their homes, in one of the most diverse communities in America. In December, the Fresno ABC news affiliate reported on “multiple complaints” against the Wedgewood real estate investment company for wrongfully evicting people from their homes. A Business Journal headline referred to “Fresno’s Red-Hot Housing Market.” The connection between all these stories is obvious and familiar. The real estate market is making the most of the demand for housing outside of the larger cities by spiking rents and driving people from their homes.
Meanwhile the global news service The Conversation — which attempts to increase the communication between academic studies and journalistic reporting—broke down what it calls the “pervasive problem” of housing in America. The article particularly focuses on the quarter of all households “that pay at least half their income on rent,” emphasizing “there is not a single state, metropolitan area or county in which a full-time minimum wage worker can afford the ‘fair market rent’ for a two-bedroom home.” The article points out that proposed Congressional solutions would still leave millions of Americans unable to afford housing.
In the face of almost fully automated production, real estate speculation has become an aggressive battle front in the effort to maintain the private property system. Alongside red-lining and blockbusting practices, such land speculation has long been used in concert with segregation practices to drive down the value of homes in one area and drive up their prices in others. Creating such inequity in property values then promotes unequal tax bases, inequality in public education and the strategic use of police to protect certain areas and occupy others.
As “Black History Month: Disarming the Rulers with Our Unity” notes, slavery and genocidal land theft were part of the economic base of this country from the start. Because of this history of dehumanizing practices regarding indigenous Americans and Black people sold through chattel slavery, the fight for racial justice and class justice are not in opposition to one another but are part of the same process.
This overlap is vivid in Benton Harbor, Michigan. “State of Michigan Sows Another Water Disaster in Benton Harbor” illustrates how the poisoning of Black residents in impoverished cities for profit has become the state of Michigan’s way of doing business. At the same time, the article illustrates the international dimensions of this struggle and how the people of Benton Harbor are showing all of us the way to fight forward.
“Water. Agua. Tó.,” links the international water struggle to the struggle against water scarcity in the American southwest. It shows how all areas of revolutionary struggle boil down to the issue of water. As a class, we are simultaneously fighting for housing for all, healthcare for all, education, employment, and economic security for all. None of these are possible if we do not focus our revolutionary fervor on this, our most public resource, our most fundamental resource, second only to oxygen.
Anticipating the greatest political and constitutional crisis since the Civil War, “2022 Elections Pit Corporate Profit vs People’s Needs” shows that people who believe in democracy and oppose corporate control of politicians are on the move, protesting in the streets, striking for their basic needs, and pushing back against attempts to dismantle democracy. They want a government that supports their needs.
“Meaning of Arbery and Rittenhouse Verdicts” anticipates just how tough that fight will be. As the discarded millions organize to demand their government assist them, this ruling class has to prepare more aggressive, fascist methods to control those who must fight to survive. That repression will increasingly spill out to greater sections of society.
With these growing numbers, and with a growing understanding of the causes of our struggle as well as the potential of today’s automated production, we can stop the inhumanity caused by speculative capitalism. “Replacing Illusion with Possibility in 2022” states that our class’s future depends upon a shared vision of what sort of world is possible. Together, we will not only ensure housing for all; we can turn the world into a home that nourishes all our collective hopes and dreams. RC
January/February 2022. Vol32.Ed1
This article originated in Rally, Comrades!
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