The Invisible Doctrine (2024)

Book Review from the October 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism (& How It Came to Control Your Life). By George Monbiot & Peter Hutchison (Allen Lane)

This small book embraces some pretty big ideas, of interest to socialists. It’s a collaboration between US radical filmmaker Peter Hutchison (whose past work ranges from Iron Man to the Noam Chomsky documentary Requiem for the American Dream) and journalist George Monbiot. Monbiot’s trajectory is also of interest for socialists. From run-of-the-mill environmental reform campaigner in the 1990s his writings over the last 20 years detail a growing revolutionary political consciousness.

The objective of the book is to shed light on the significant political changes – ‘capitalism on steroids’ as the authors put it – that have occurred in the last 50 years and understand the extent to which these are predictable consequences of a concerted ideological offensive by the ruling class.

The book traces the intellectual origins of neoliberalism back to Hayek and von Mises. These ideas (privatization, cut taxes, deregulation etc) originally confined to academia were nurtured, funded and propagated by US business interests. (Monbiot has previously done much to shed light on the murky business origins of all the impressive-sounding institutes, thinktanks and lobbyists that actively try and manage political debate).

The authors make an attempt to argue that neoliberalism is distinct from classical laissez-faire liberalism, in that it emphasizes economic freedoms but pays less attention to the philosophical liberties of the individual that are usually bundled in. Adam Smith may have felt it necessary to expound on the benefits to society of the ‘invisible hand’; in contrast neoliberals don’t really care what the consequences are – the free market is the objective. For our part we have to be hopeful that workers increasingly see an invisible hand that gives them a very visible ‘two-fingers’. I’m not sure whether neoliberalism merits its own chapter in any political history of exploitation and oppression, but socialists would perhaps see it as a more honest philosophical rationale for capitalism. Either way the authors don’t get lost in the angels-on-pins philosophy, and are pretty explicit: ‘Neoliberalism is class war’.

The authors argue that neoliberalism’s disdain for anything beyond the market means that democracy is being degraded globally. We used to be told that capitalism and democracy were ideologically intertwined in a glorious revolutionary project. That was nonsense of course (the vote was just a necessary concession made by capitalists to keep workers on-side) but nevertheless democracy is a pretty heavyweight argument, one worth trying to have on your side. Harder to argue though in an era when free-market ideology appears to travel hand-in-hand with openly authoritarian demagogues; the recent Elon Musk/Donald Trump interview is a clear example (but perhaps not so much ‘hand-in-hand‘ as just two hours of mutual rimming – apologies to Socialist Standard readers for the mental image invoked).

World socialists are arguably unique as a political movement in how explicit we are in our confidence in the capacity of our species to understand the world we live in (given a chance) and act in our collective interests to create a democratic, participative and conscious revolution. We are therefore very interested in the spread of political ideas, including pro-capitalist ones. The ideas of von Mises and Hayek have clearly had impact. It helps to have a billionaires’ blank cheque of course, but the story of neoliberalism lends strength to the argument that ideas, particularly if they can be framed in a coherent narrative, actually matter. The unopposed march of neoliberal ideas has partly been because the left has been unable to adequately create its own narrative. World socialists would argue that this is because so much of the left are in denial; deep-down they are actually wedded to capitalism.

Many supposedly ‘anti-capitalist’ books end with a whimper as the author provides a list of reforms, a mild wish list. Monbiot and Hutchison end their book more substantially, suggesting the potential for some sort of alternative narrative, a ‘politics of belonging’. This involves acknowledging the remaining non-market commons around us that we share, and interesting concepts such as private sufficiency/public luxury are discussed that should be of interest to world socialists. There are glimpses of how this may be pre-figured and developed within the capitalist state (a contentious point for most world socialists) but don’t let this put you off. In the final chapter the authors make a strong and refreshing argument, that every world socialist will echo, against reformism:

‘Far from being a shortcut to the change we want to see, it is the morass into which ambition sinks. System change as the neoliberals and the new demagogues have proven is, and has always been, the only fast and effective means of transformation’.

Brian Gardner

Material World: Non-market socialism is feasible (2024)

The Material World Column from the October 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

All the necessary techno-infrastructure required to enable a post-capitalist society to function effectively already exists today; we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. A self-regulating system of stock control involving ‘calculation-in-kind’, making use of disaggregated physical magnitudes (for instance, the number of cans of baked beans in stock in a store) rather than some single common unit of accounting (such as money) as the basis for calculation, is something that already operates well enough under our very noses within capitalism, alongside monetary accounting. Any supermarket today would, operationally speaking, rapidly grind to a complete halt without recourse to calculation-in-kind to manage and monitor the flow of goods in and out of the store.

At any point in time our supermarket will know more or less exactly how many tins of baked beans it has on its shelves. The computerisation of inventory management has made this task so much simpler. Our supermarket will know, also, the rate at which those tins of baked beans are being removed from the shelves. On the basis of this information it will know when, and how much fresh stock, it will need to order from the suppliers to replenish its existing stock – this simple arithmetical procedure being precisely what is meant by ‘calculation-in-kind’. It is applicable to every conceivable kind of good – from intermediate or producer goods to final or consumer goods.

Calculation-in-kind is the bedrock upon which any kind of advanced and large-scale system of production crucially depends. In capitalism, monetary accounting coexists alongside in-kind accounting but is completely tangential or irrelevant to the latter. It is only because goods – like our tins of baked beans – take the form of commodities that one can be beguiled into thinking that calculation-in-kind somehow depends on monetary calculation. It doesn’t. It firmly stands on its own two feet.

Market libertarians don’t appear to grasp this point at all. For instance, according to Jésus Huerta de Soto:

‘… the problem with proposals to carry out economic calculation in natura or in kind is simply that no calculation, neither addition nor subtraction, can be made using heterogeneous quantities. Indeed, if, in exchange for a certain machine, the governing body decides to hand over 40 pigs, 5 barrels of flour, 1 ton of butter, and 200 eggs, how can it know that it is not handing over more than it should from the standpoint of its own valuations?’ (Socialism, Economic Calculation and Entrepreneurship, 1992, Ch 4, Section 5).

This passage reveals a complete misunderstanding of the nature and significance of calculation-in-kind in a post-capitalist society. Such a society is not based on, or concerned with, economic exchange at all. Consequently, the claim that ‘no calculation, neither addition nor subtraction, can be made using heterogeneous quantities’ is completely irrelevant since such a society is not called upon to perform these kinds of arithmetic operations involving a common unit of account. This is only necessary within an exchange-based economy in which you need to ensure exchanges are objectively equivalent.

On the other hand, even an exchange-based economy, like capitalism, absolutely depends on calculation in kind. As Paul Cockshott rightly notes:

‘Indeed every economic system must calculate in kind. The whole process of capitalist economy would fail if firms like Honda could not draw up detailed bills of materials for the cars they finally produce. Only a small part of the information exchanged between companies relates to prices. The greater part relates to physical quantities and physical specifications of products’ (Reply to Brewster, Paul Cockshott’s Blog, 28 August 2017).

In his Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth Mises claimed that the application of in-kind calculation would be feasible only on a small scale. However, it is possible to identify extant or past examples of calculation-in-kind being implemented on a fairly – or even very large scale. For instance, Cockshott refers us to the fascinating case of the first Pyramid at Saqqara, built under the supervision of Imhotep, an enormous undertaking by any standard, involving nothing more than calculation-in-kind. Another example was the Inca civilisation, a large-scale and complex civilisation that effectively operated without money.

However, it was really the emergence of linear programming that has effectively delivered the coup de grâce against this particular line of argument peddled by Mises and others. It has removed what Mises considered to be the main objection to calculation in kind – that it could not be applied on a large scale basis.

Linear programming is an algorithmic technique developed by the Soviet mathematician Leonid Kantorovich in 1939 and, around about the same time, the Dutch-American economist, T. C. Koopman. As a technique it is widely and routinely used today to solve a variety of problems – such as the logistics of supply chains, production scheduling, and such technical issues as how to best to organise traffic flows within a highly complex public transportation network with a view to, say, reducing average waiting times.

To begin with, the computational possibilities of this technique were rather limited. This changed with the development of the computer. As Cockshott notes:

‘Since the pioneering work on linear programming in the 30s, computing has been transformed from something done by human ’computers’ to something done by electronic ones. The speed at which calculations can be done has increased many billion-fold. It is now possible to use software packages to solve huge systems of linear equations’ (Paul Cockshott, 2007, Mises, Kantorovich and Economic Computation, Munich Personal RePEc Archive, Paper No. 6063).

Computerised linear programming allows us to solve some very large-scale optimisation problems involving many thousands of variables. It can also help to solve small-scale optimisation problems.

In short, linear programming provides us with a method for optimising the use of resources – either by maximising a given output or by minimising material inputs or both. The problem with any single scalar measure or unit of accounting (such as market price or labour values) is that these are unable to properly handle the complexity of real world constraints on production which, by their very nature, are multi-factorial. Calculation-in-kind in the guise of linear programming provides us with the means of doing precisely this since it is directly concerned with the way in which multiple factors interact with – and constrain – each other.

While a non-market system of production could operate well enough without linear programming, there is little doubt that the availability of such a tool has now put the matter of whether such a system is feasible or not, beyond dispute.

Robin Cox

Labour's capitalist wealth fund (2024)

Tony Crosland

From the October 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Labour Party used to believe that if the government controlled the ‘commanding heights of the economy’ — such as the central bank, coal, electricity, steel, railways — it would be able to control the way the capitalist economy worked as it would make state capital investment rather than private capital investment the driving force. If private capital investment faltered then the state could step in and invest instead.

The 1945 Labour government did implement widespread nationalisation but things didn’t work out as planned. The theory was premised on the state industries making sufficient profits. In practice, while they did make a profit most of time, it wasn’t enough and they themselves had to borrow money. As they were providing a monopoly service to the private sector there were pressures not to charge too much so as not to undermine the competitiveness of private capitalist firms on export markets. They were also burdened by having to pay interest on the compensation bonds paid to the former owners. Then, after Labour was voted out of office in 1951, oil — in private hands — began to outcompete coal as a means of generating power for industry and the transport of goods, undermining any ‘commanding’ position the government was supposed to have.

In opposition, as Patrick Maguire pointed out in an article before the election in the Times (21 June), some Labour strategists began to question the commanding heights theory and to suggest that there were other ways of controlling the economy such as monetary and tax policy without needing to take industry out of private hands. This view was put forward by Labour politician Anthony Crosland in 1956 in his book The Future of Socialism. According to Maguire:

‘Crosland said something heretical. Profits were not only a precondition of rapid growth but something that socialists must “logically applaud” as a driver of industrial expansion and investment’.

The view of the current Labour leadership, Maguire went on, is basically the same:

‘That a Labour government that wishes to transform public services needs to encourage private investment and, yes, profit’.

Something, of course, that the Conservatives and Liberals had always accepted.

Actually, Crosland questioned whether capitalism was still capitalism and whether what had evolved in its place was still dominated by the profit motive, but it is revealing that, when his book was republished on its fiftieth anniversary in 2006, he was perceived by Labour leaders as saying that the economy was driven by private capitalist firms seeking to make a profit and that this must be applauded and encouraged. But this was a lesson the Labour Party had learned in the meantime from its experience in office in the 1960s and 70s.

Maguire’s article was entitled ‘Reeves’s plan for growth is built on private cash’. What she is setting up is a ‘National Wealth Fund’ to mobilise private capital to invest in the transition to a low-carbon economy in the expectation that this will stimulate growth in the rest of the capitalist economy (‘boost growth and unlock investment’ as the government press release put it – tinyurl.com/59ckdkdv).

The idea is that, for a particular project, the state will put up a quarter of the amount needed as long as private investors put up the rest, with any profits to be shared pro rata. To work, the project will need to be profitable; otherwise no private capitalist firm will be interested. As one of those involved in the scheme told the Times (15 July):

‘This is going to sink or swim based on its return generation. If this loses money it’ll be in trouble. It’s absolutely critical that it makes money’.

For the private capitalist investors of course, not just the government.

The government is banking that putting up a quarter of the money will attract private capital that otherwise wouldn’t be interested as the risk of not generating enough profit was too high. This might indeed attract some private capital. But, as Mehreen Kahn, the Economics Editor of the Times has pointed out:

‘Labour has made a virtue of “derisking” private sector investment. The danger is a state that will end up underwriting corporate profits while nationalising losses in the rush to fix a longstanding investment gap by throwing money at private finance’ (16 July).

In any event, the commanding heights of the economy remain occupied by private capitalist enterprises and so the economy will be driven by how much these decide to invest, which in turn will depend on how much profit they judge they can make. That means that whether or not there is the growth that the Labour government wants (to pay for promised improvements in public services) will be up to those deciding on private capital investment. To have any chance of succeeding, the government will have to pander to private capitalist industry and serve its interests.

This they already pledged to do when they proclaimed themselves the Party of Business. During — and for — the elections they added that they were pro-worker too. But it is not possible to be both pro-business and pro-worker as there is an irreconcilable conflict of interests between the capitalists and the workers arising from the fact that profits originate from the difference between what workers produce and what they get paid. Any party that takes office under capitalism is forced to give priority to profit-making as this is what drives the capitalist economy and so has to be pro-business, even if it might want to be pro-worker and even if initially it brings in some pro-worker measures. This is the experience not just of all previous Labour governments but of similar governments everywhere. The newly-elected Starmer Labour government won’t be — can’t be — any different. As will become evident.

As we said, capitalism was the problem, not the Tories. It still is.

Adam Buick

Grenfell: an unquenchable blaze (2024)

From the October 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Imagine waking at night inside walls of dripping flames in a fire that’s engulfing your flat in the tower block that is your home. A crackling storm of searing flames, where the walls turn to molten polyethylene (uPVC), a material described by Peter Apps, an editor at Inside Housing magazine, ‘like a solid petrol’ burning. It’s a material that melts as it burns, which it does easily at low temperatures. The air itself becomes as hot as the fire itself, scalding your lungs with each breath. Many victims of fire die in hospital from burn damage to lungs, days or weeks later after inhaling a suffocating thick black petroleum-based smoke. One element of the chemical cocktail released from burning uPVC is cyanide.

The escape routes, once familiar corridors and communal areas, now transformed into dark labyrinths of despair. The firefighters had told you stay put for safety but now the building’s uPVC shell is quickly and fully alight, dripping flaming materials floor to floor.

Grenfell Tower’s residents experienced this horror on 14 June 2017, when the 24-storey block was engulfed in fire, causing 72 deaths. The fire began with a malfunctioning fridge-freezer but spread due to the building’s combustible cladding, revealing systemic safety failures in UK construction and government oversight.

Survivor and campaigner testimonies

Survivors and bereaved families had consistently criticised the lack of accountability from authorities. They argue that Grenfell happened because the people in power saw the residents as expenses, not individuals. Grenfell Action Group (GAG), which was instrumental in raising concerns before the fire, repeatedly warned that a disaster was inevitable. Their warnings, however, were ignored. In a blog post written months before the fire, GAG chillingly predicted, ‘only a catastrophic event will expose the ineptitude and incompetence of our landlord’.

Testimonies to the Inquiry, whose final report was published at the beginning of September, revealed that fire safety was sidelined in favour of cost reduction and aesthetics. Architects and contractors ignored basic safety practices, contributing to the mass killing. As lawyer Stephanie Barwise KC, representing survivors, noted, there were repeated opportunities to prevent the fire, but none were taken.

The inquiry has also shone a light on the inequality and indifference shown towards social housing tenants and marginalised communities.

Refurbishment and cladding

It started with regeneration. Decisions in relation to Grenfell made during the refurbishment of the tower avoided consulting residents who before the fire had formed a residents’ committee. The refurbishment project was carried out by private contractors under the direction of the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO)

Following decades of deregulation and privatisation, social housing management has often been outsourced to private contractors, as was the case with KCTMO, which managed Grenfell on behalf of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. This system of privatised management prioritised efficiency and cost-reduction over the safety of the residents.

Originally, fireproof cladding was planned for Grenfell’s refurbishment. However, the material was downgraded to save money. An email from one contractor revealed that lower quality cladding was selected to save money despite warnings about the fire risk posed by the material. As one Inquiry expert aptly described it, ‘the cladding was a time bomb waiting to go off’.

The decision to downgrade the type of cladding was made to increase profits for the subcontractor. It directly led to the rapid spread of the fire. It was a decision that didn’t involve the people whose lives would be affected, but whose lives were ended by this decision. The money ‘saved’ on the cladding and which ultimately ended 72 lives was £293,368.

Grenfell was a block in the midst of one of the most affluent areas of London, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and was considered by its rich neighbours as an eyesore. The cladding served more for aesthetic purposes, making the building blend in with the affluent neighbourhood of Kensington rather than improving its safety. It was, as one resident put it, just ‘lipstick for the building’.

The residents themselves pointed out that they were more concerned with the activities inside the building such as the decommissioning of the communal boiler in favour of installation of individual boilers in the hall outside of the flats. These boiler cupboards were installed so the KCTMO could reduce their own servicing costs while passing the cost of heating and hot water to individual residents, while still jacking up service charges, an area where regulation doesn’t prevent extortion of residents. These same boiler installations were cited by one victim of the fire as what prevented him from getting his daughter and pregnant wife out of the building during the fire. What was previously a straight line to the fire exit was now a series of enclaves that in the thick tar of petroleum-based plastic fuelled smoke, had trapped his family.

Systemic inequality and class divide

The KCTMO repeatedly ignored safety concerns raised by residents. Residents had formed grassroots resistance against the faceless body managing their lives, but their warnings fell on deaf ears. The KCTMO, motivated by cost-cutting, neglected the safety of Grenfell’s working-class residents. The residents were living in unsafe conditions.

Social inequality, an essential aspect of capitalism, was a core underlying cause of what happened. Survivors and campaigners pointed out that the fire would likely not have occurred in a building which housed wealthier residents, because standards of safety and maintenance would have been higher. Edward Daffarn, a Grenfell resident and campaigner, stated:

‘We were treated as second-class citizens because of our postcode and because we were poor’.

Dr Lee Elliot Major, a social mobility expert, concurred: ‘Grenfell exemplifies how housing policy in the UK, driven by neoliberal economics, has led to a profit-driven culture where the most vulnerable are treated as afterthoughts’.

A major critique emerging from the Grenfell fire is how capitalism treats housing as a commodity rather than as satisfying a basic human need. Housing policy has shifted towards encouraging individual ownership, with little regard for the safety of those left living in social housing. This has been underfunded and neglected for decades, often outsourced to private contractors whose primary concern is profit, not safety. Grenfell epitomises where this leads.

Corporate negligence and government deregulation

The corporate entities involved in Grenfell’s refurbishment, which included Rydon, Arconic and Celotex, are rightly criticised for their role in the mass killing. These companies continued to sell or install materials that were known to be unsafe, driven by the profit motive. Internal documents from Arconic, for example, showed that the company knew their cladding was highly flammable but continued to supply it because it was cheaper and there was little regulatory pressure to stop doing so.

These corporate entities are not just the few bad apples. Maximising profits is the standard practice not just in the housing and building industry but within all capitalist enterprises. Everyone living under capitalism is subjected to this law of the jungle that permeates every aspect in life.

The role of successive governments in the mass killing cannot be overlooked. They must share the blame. The previous Labour government brought in the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, weakening fire safety regulations. This measure transferred responsibility for fire risk assessments to building owners and landlords, who rely on private contractors who, as always under the pressure of profit-making, are incentivised to minimise costs rather than maximise safety.

The Tory-Lib Dem coalition government which took over from Labour in 2010 is also to be blamed for its role in the policies and decisions that contributed to the Grenfell Tower fire, especially Eric Pickles, who was its Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government from 2010 to 2015. His time in office was marked by several actions related to fire safety and housing regulation, many of which are now seen as contributing to the fire.

Pickles cut back on regulations including fire safety, as part of the broader government push to reduce public spending and further ‘cut red tape’. Under Pickles’s leadership, there was a move to reduce the burden on housing developers and councils to meet stringent safety standards. One example was the weakening of building regulations, which reduced the requirement for fire safety inspections in some types of properties.

This drive to deregulate was touted as making construction and housing development more cost-efficient, but by unleashing profit-seeking private companies it compromised safety; it was an outgrowth of capitalist ideology that places emphasis on reducing government oversight in favour of what are euphemistically termed market-led solutions. Profit always trumps the lives of working-class people. As socialists we know no matter how much the market is regulated no length of leash will hold back the mad dog of capital from attacking when his food bowl is threatened.

The role of capitalism

The decisions leading to the Grenfell killings are a reflection of capitalism’s systemic failures. The drive for profit at all costs, the deregulation of safety standards, and the neglect of social housing tenants are all inherent features of this economic system. As a result, the lives of working-class people are deemed expendable in the pursuit of wealth.

In 2017 in the aftermath of the fire David Lammy, now Foreign Secretary in the current Labour government, summed up the situation as: ‘This is what happens when you deregulate and allow market forces to dictate safety in housing. Profit comes first, people come second’.

Grenfell is not just a story of corporate and governmental negligence; it is a symbol of deep-seated inequality. The fire exposed the glaring class divides in London, where working-class residents of social housing are treated as expendable. Now that the Inquiry has reported, the survivors and campaigners remain determined to hold those responsible accountable and to ensure that no other community suffers the same fate.

For survivors and the bereaved, justice remains elusive. As survivor Edward Daffarn stated during his testimony: ‘No one has been held to account for what happened at Grenfell. We don’t just want words; we want to see real change.’

‘Justice for Grenfell’ is not merely about criminal charges or compensation—it is about systemic change, ending capitalism with its class inequality and profit priority.

A. T.

Country Lives (2024)

Book Review from the October 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Forgotten Girls: a Memoir of Friendship and Lost Promise in Rural America. By Monica Potts. Penguin £10.99.

The author was born and brought up in the small town of Clinton in Arkansas. Her book has two main themes: life, especially for women, in an isolated area, and the story of her friend Darci.

Like much of the rural US, Clinton has social and economic problems, made worse by the 2007–8 crash. Services such as schools and post offices are closing, industries are leaving, and poor white people – women, especially – are dying younger than a generation ago. Clinton is part of the Bible Belt, and evangelical churches are very powerful. There are high rates of sexual abuse and childhood trauma, and women in particular are discriminated against. ‘The church set girls up to be of service to everyone and in charge of nothing’ and ‘Women were held morally responsible for everything that happened in their families and communities. They were supposed to sacrifice everything for their children, even their own happiness and mental health.’ They find it hard to imagine a single life and are expected to do what their husbands tell them. There is a high rate of teenage births, and what sex education there is emphasises abstinence. The area is very conservative, is strongly anti-abortion and supports Trump.

Potts was, partly by chance, able to move away, attend college and become a journalist, though she later moved back to Clinton with her partner. Darci, however, was not so lucky. She lost her virginity at fourteen (to an eighteen-year-old); another local girl got married at fifteen, to a man nine years older. By the age of sixteen, Darci had a live-in boyfriend. She had some talent as a musician and played at music festivals, but drug-taking meant she missed so much attendance that she was unable to graduate from high school. She was emotionally and physically abused by partners, and had two children in her twenties. She stole smallish sums from an employer, but this eventually totalled $13,000, and she was sentenced to probation. Various jail spells followed drug charges and violating probation.

One of Potts’ cousins says to her: ‘Can you imagine waking up in your life, at thirty-five, and realising you have nothing?’ This aptly characterises the lives of Darci and people (not just women) like her: they are depressed, break the law in various ways, go to jail, are released, but then the cycle starts again. Poor white people are badly off, but feel that at least they are not black and at the bottom of the ‘rigid racial hierarchy’.

This is a vivid account of working-class life in some of the poorest parts of the US, and a reminder of how capitalism treats so many people in the ‘land of the free’.

Paul Bennett

Proper Gander: Flipped Off (2024)

The Proper Gander column from the October 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Property makeover shows have been a regular fixture-and-fitting in the TV schedules since the BBC’s ratings hit Changing Rooms in the ‘90s. This century, the genre itself has been made over, going upmarket from redecorating neighbours’ lounges to renovating entire houses. BBC One’s Homes Under The Hammer has been popular enough for 27 series of formulaic episodes of the presenters looking round tired properties being sold at auction, meeting the people who buy them, and catching up again after refurbishments have been carried out. Announcing any profit made from the homes’ recalculated monetary value is the programme’s punchline, and appropriately, its title sequence features model houses wrapped in banknotes.

Wanting to snare some of the BBC’s viewers, Channel 4 responded with The Great House Giveaway. This has taken the setup of before-and-after renovation and stretched it out to go into more detail about the process in between, adding a game show element with contestants and prizes. The ‘giveaway’ in the title is misleading, as the contestants aren’t given a house, but are there to win money towards a deposit to get on the ‘property ladder’. Paired up and with varying amounts of expertise, they revamp a dilapidated semi or bungalow purchased at auction by the programme makers. With a timescale and a budget to replace bathrooms, knock down walls or install new kitchens, the aim is to re-sell the house afterwards at a higher price. The format is televised ‘flipping’: the practice of buying a property to sell it again at a profit rather than live in it. This profit is the contestants’ prize, after costs for going over budget, stamp duty, council tax, auction fees, utility bills, loan interest, insurance, solicitors and surveyors are deducted. More recent editions were filmed when the property market ‘went haywire’, leading to many refurbished houses being sold at auction for less than expected, and sometimes at a loss.

We watch these programmes to see the buildings being transformed from run down to done up, with the financial stakes intended to add some tension and adrenaline. The programme makers realise that paying stamp duty or calculating loan interest aren’t as visual as someone swinging a mallet at a fireplace, so it’s understandable that they don’t dwell much on accounts and bureaucracy. But emphasising the renovation over the finances, at least until the reveal of the profit or loss at the end, distracts from the tawdry basis of The Great House Giveaway. The contestants slog for months doing up each property for an uncertain amount of financial reward, if any, making it harsher than the average gameshow.

Both The Great House Giveaway and Homes Under The Hammer illustrate the commodification of where we live. The property being renovated is understood in terms of its financial value: the amount of money it sells for, the cost of materials and labour, the admin and legal fees, the hoped-for surplus. It’s a good thing that a house gets renovated in each episode, but in The Great House Giveaway especially, this is a means to a monetary end rather than because it benefits whoever moves in. Alongside this commodification is the separation between who owns a house and who lives in it. If we’re renting, we’re beholden to the landlord, and if we have a mortgage, we’re in debt for decades, and in both situations we risk losing the right to live in our home if we don’t keep up with the payments. In capitalism, much of our sense of security comes from how secure our home is, and this depends on how strong we are in the turbulent economic market.

People living in a future society of free access and common ownership of land and industries will have a different kind of relationship to where they call home. We can’t really empathise with this now, as our view is shaped by living within capitalism’s alienating system. The sense of security which would come with a home in socialism wouldn’t rely on something external and out of our control, as in capitalism, but on whether it suits our own needs. With production directly aimed at satisfying what communities require, there would be no reason for people to live in overcrowded, damp buildings made of shoddy or dangerous materials. We could have the flexibility to choose whether to remain in one home for years or decades, or to travel around, staying in different places for shorter periods. There would likely be a wider understanding of what makes a household, with the freedom to live by ourselves, in families, with friends or as part of larger groups. These variations exist now, of course, but the difference is that in capitalism, our choices are constrained by our economic position, while in a socialist society, our choices would be based only on preferences and practicalities.

Communities would still need some oversight of how housing is organised, with frameworks agreed democratically based on what’s needed. The concepts of ‘owning’ and ‘renting’ properties as we understand them now wouldn’t apply, as these relate to an economic and legal context which won’t exist. There could be some kind of agreement between a household and a community about how long they plan to live in a particular home, if the circumstances require it. And communities would still have to make sure there are the resources, the know-how and the means to build and maintain homes, which will be more straightforward without having to take finances into account. A socialist society might even have television programmes about renovating properties, although any retro broadcasts of The Great House Giveaway or Homes Under The Hammer will be nigh-on incomprehensible.

Mike Foster

Socialist Sonnet No. 171: Drama or Farce? (2024)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog 

Drama or Farce?

 Viewed through red and blue tinted spectacles,

The two candidates perform as per script,

A political pantomime that’s gripped

The media at least. To raise the hackles

There’s the villain and his dastardly schemes,

With a reasonable heroine who charms:

Their parts deliver pathos and alarms,

While nothing in the plot’s quite what it seems.

With faux audience participation

People are moved to laughter, tears and rage,

But know they will never be centre stage;

This drama is not of their creation.

Both actors appear sincere and intense

Enough to fascinate the audience.

D. A.