Housing Crisis is Capitalist Crisis in Greater Madrid
There are tens of thousands of empty, unused homes in the region in the hands of large financial monopolies, which hold them for speculative purposes while the most impoverished sectors of the working class live in overcrowded conditions or are evicted.
The original article in Spanish can be read here
The issue of access to housing has become one of the biggest problems facing the working class and the popular sectors in our country, which manifests itself with particular gravity and violence in the large cities and metropolitan centres which, like Madrid, concentrate around them increasing numbers of workers, as they also concentrate the main productive centres of the region.
By hoarding property and seeking maximum profit, rentiers have raised the price of housing to historic highs, currently standing in the Community of Madrid above €4,000/m2 in the case of the sale of property and €18/m2 in the case of rentals. This fact is increased by the speculative use of property linked to the tourist industry, through the use of housing as tourist flats, hotels and luxury apartments.
In the housing market, as in any other area that allows for the accumulation of capital, there has been a process of concentration of property in fewer and fewer hands for some time. In Madrid, 2 out of 3 landlords own more than 3 homes, and in recent years it has become common for large financial monopolies to acquire properties on a massive scale, as one more element of their capital investments in the permanent search for higher profits. In this way, the large land and housing owners (who are the majority of landlords) do not constitute a social subject separate from the bourgeoisie, but their rent-seeking activity is fully intertwined and rooted in the heart of the financial oligarchy. The “landlords” are, in their vast majority, part of the capitalist class, which lives and enriches itself at the expense of the exploitation of the working class.
The different measures promoted by the central and regional governments have tried to alleviate the most dramatic effects of this situation, either through the granting of aid for purchase and rental, such as the My First Home plan of the Ayuso [Madrid] government, or through tax exemptions for rentiers and lukewarm price limits, as is the case of the Housing Law approved by the progressive coalition [national] government. Despite the fact that both sides have staged major disagreements on the matter, the reality is that none of the alternatives presented to us have attempted to alter in the slightest the capitalist profit, the basis of the social conflict around housing.
When it comes to choosing sides, all political forces in the parliamentary arch are, to a greater or lesser extent, on the side of the rentiers. So much so that, in Madrid, all levels of government, from Pedro Sánchez [social democrat PM of Spain] to [Christian Democrat] Ayuso, from Almeida [Christian Democrat and Mayor of Madrid] to [former Mayoress and social democrat] Manuela Carmena, have promoted continuing to increase the housing stock and reproduce the current dynamic through large real estate operations such as Madrid Nuevo Norte, Operación Campamento or the developments in the southeast.
All this despite the fact that there are tens of thousands of empty, unused homes in the region in the hands of large financial monopolies, which hold them for speculative purposes while the most impoverished sectors of the working class live in overcrowded conditions or are evicted.
Housing has become another battlefield in the class war between the social majority that generates wealth and the parasitic minority that lives off of appropriating it. Thus, in the face of the struggles of resistance that the working class and the people have presented against evictions and the increase in rents, the response of the State, regardless of the colour of the government, has been to fine-tune its legal repressive instruments and to allow the unpunished action of fascist para-police groups, which operate under the label of eviction companies.
For the PCTE, the struggle for the right to housing cannot be understood separately from the struggle for wages, but rather both form a single struggle of the working class against capitalist exploitation, the dispossession of workers and the ever-increasing levels of poverty and misery that it generates, by increasing the cost of living far above the growth of wages. Dissociating the different spaces and places where workers confront capitalist exploitation, whether directly in the workplace or indirectly around the consumption of the means necessary for the reproduction of life, only leads to an erroneous explanation of the problem and, therefore, to proposing measures of limited effectiveness as an alternative.
"Housing is another battlefield in the class war between the social majority that generates wealth and the parasitic minority that lives by appropriating it. The housing issue can only be definitively resolved by directing and unifying each struggle towards the revolutionary overcoming of capitalism. The daily struggle against the rentiers and for the right to housing continues. We need to strengthen the fight against evictions and for the right to housing through organisation in neighbourhoods and workplaces."
The housing issue can only be definitively resolved by directing and unifying each struggle towards the revolutionary overcoming of capitalism and the construction of a new society, socialism-communism, where the fruits of labour will satisfy all the needs of the social majority, including the right of every person to enjoy quality housing for themselves and their families.
In no case should recognizing the foundation and origin of the housing problem in the capitalist mode of production - and, therefore, locating its only possible definitive resolution in overcoming this system - justify renouncing the daily struggle against the rentiers and for the right to housing. Every struggle and every advance, however partial, that is achieved thanks to the collective struggle, represents a valuable experience for the whole of the working class and the working people; it allows us to increase our organized strength and better prepare for the following battles. If the organization of the working class and the working people is able to put a stop to the thirst of the capitalist class - which, either directly through wages or indirectly through the price of housing and rent, prevents us from accessing a roof over our heads - it will be an indisputable victory that will allow us to open new horizons of struggle.
For all these reasons, the PCTE calls for strengthening the fight against evictions and for the right to housing through organisation in neighbourhoods and workplaces. Let us raise a powerful, sustained mobilisation against rentiers, capitalists and their governments that guarantees the right of every person to have a home.
Expropriate the rentiers, defeat their governments, guarantee housing!