Brick-and-mortar conservatism?

[imomus]

Is there a link between owning a house and conservatism? Intuitively I'd say yes, there is, and that conversely there's a link between renting and radicalism. Take a look, for instance, at this ranking of the percentage of people renting in various cities:

Berlin 87
Geneva 85
Amsterdam 83
Hamburg 78
Vienna 76
New York 70
San Francisco 65
Chicago 60
Brussels 57
Copenhagen 50
Stockholm 49
Helsinki 47
London 41
Oslo 30
Barcelona 30
Dublin 28
Athens 27

Aren't the cities at the top of that list some of the most radical? Surely it's no accident that people in cities like Berlin, Amsterdam, New York and San Francisco prefer to rent than buy? Surely it changes the whole tenor and texture of civic life in those cities?

But when Evan Davis asked contributors to his interesting investigation into the politics of home ownership, The Price of Property (BBC Radio 4) the same question, he got resounding "no"s all round.

Geo-demographic expert (and iMomus ultra-villain this week) Richard Webber -- author of the Mosaic consumer segmentation tool -- said that there couldn't be a connection between home ownership and conservatism because South Wales contains constituencies where Conservative MPs regularly lose their deposits, and yet South Wales has a high proportion of home ownership. Meanwhile, Labour MP Roy Hattersley and Conservative MP Michael Gove were busy agreeing that because three quarters of British people own their own home, and 90% aspire to, it's impossible to align home ownership with one party or the other. This, it seems to me, is akin to saying that if enough British people -- and all British political parties -- loved Hitler, loving Hitler wouldn't make you a fascist. Surely it's possible that property ownership has shifted the whole of Britain to the right, so that no political party now would dare propose a policy actively encouraging people to rent, or suggesting that renting is a virtue?

House prices -- which for the time being continue to rise feverishly -- drive the UK economy as well as every dinner table conversation. Home ownership is official policy in the UK; the government wants 80% of Britons to own their own homes. Currently, 70% do, the same percentage as in the US. The European average is 60%, though in cities like Berlin that can drop to a mere 13%.

British people borrow more money than anyone in the world to buy their homes. Ownership satisfies a deep need, we're told, in the British psyche: every Englishman's home is his castle. Owning allows you to decorate your place the way you want it, to express yourself, even if in practice that just means that your substandard, identikit, vastly overpriced house has a front door painted in a colour you picked yourself, and that instead of holding your habitat somewhat at arm's length, you hug its horrible chintzy bay windows, dingy garden and meanly-proportioned staircase close to your heart, regarding them as your very own special things.

The politician most responsible for Britain's recent surge in home ownership is Margaret Thatcher, who's quoted on the programme saying that Britain would only be united when everyone in the land owned property. Part of her mission to eradicate socialism saw her selling off public housing, now desperately scarce in the UK.

In fact, owning property has long been at the heart of the British political system. The Great Reform Act of 1832 linked it directly to the right to vote. You could only vote if you owned property worth 40 shillings a year in the counties or 10 pounds a year in the cities. This led to some strange anomalies: the London borough of Westminster returned the most radical MPs, only because property was so expensive there that everyone had the vote, which meant that radical views usually excluded from parliament had to be heard.

Britain in the 19th century was a country where the majority of people rented their accommodation. The Conservative party made it policy to extend property ownership to a wider group in order to fend off threats to property from liberalism, radicalism and socialism. These threats were very real -- Marxism threatened the abolition of private property altogether, and the Liberals and Socialists were generally against it. Meanwhile, as you can read here, withholding rent was a powerful political tool for the working classes. A rent strike in London's East End helped win the Dockers Strike of 1891, for instance, and there were further successful rent strikes during the First World War and in the late 1930s. People who own property tend not to go on "mortgage strike" in support of their brothers in the mines.

What about Japan? Well, occupier-owned homes account for 60.3 % of homes in Japan, the same as the general European level. But, unlike in Britain, ownership in Japan is declining. Many young people are renting, and will rent for life. The Tokyo rental sector is expanding 4% a year, and is at record levels. Meanwhile, ownership is not seen as a good investment; property prices continue a long, slow slump from the absurd over-valuations of the Bubble period.

Journalist, photographer, artist and iMomus all-round superhero Kyoichi Tsuzuki puts a more human face on this situation in his preface to Archilab Japan 2006: Nested in the City. Tsuzuki, author of the Toyko Style photo book, is rather down on architects in general.

"For young people," he writes, "interior design is unimportant. Anything will do, a bit like camping in the mountains. Camping is not a desire in itself. What counts is the desire to be in the mountains. Likewise, young people first choose to live in a city they like. Then they rent a room to live in. As for the rest, they know how to take advantage of what the city offers. Indeed, what could be simpler when meeting with friends than to transform the corner pub into a dining room, the places where one meets for a drink, to dance, listen to music into a living room, or the gym into a bathroom. All these functions can be projected outside because they are available in the city. In the end, only the sleeping function remains attached to the room."

This dependence on local services as extensions of one's tiny living space makes for an effervescent and vital city, with lots of youthful fizz in public places.

"Nowadays," continues Tsuzuki, "young urbanites no longer feel any compelling desire to be anchored... Singles for the most part, they tell themselves that, if they had enough money, they would spend it on travelling abroad. This is the first generation that is really aware of the possibilities available to it, possibilities that no longer require them to become attached to one city. For those broken to life in New York, taking a plane to Paris or Tokyo from Kyushu amounts to virtually the same thing."

Obviously this is a lifestyle I totally recognize and identify with, and places where a lot of people feel this way are places I fit right into. There's something in the spirit, the feel, the texture of towns like this that's like oxygen. And maybe -- just maybe -- what's so liberating is the lack of brick-and-mortar conservatism.

Comments

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Very interesting passage here:

"As America came into being where once there had been "Turtle Island," Croatan remained embedded in its collective psyche. Out beyond the frontier, the state of Nature (i.e. no State) still prevailed--and within the consciousness of the settlers the option of wildness always lurked, the temptation to give up on Church, farmwork, literacy, taxes-- all the burdens of civilization--and "go to Croatan" in some way or another. Moreover, as the Revolution in England was betrayed, first by Cromwell and then by Restoration, waves of Protestant radicals fled or were transported to the New World (which had now become a prison, a place of exile). Antinomians, Familists, rogue Quakers, Levellers, Diggers, and Ranters were now introduced to the occult shadow of wildness, and rushed to embrace it.

"Anne Hutchinson and her friends were only the best known (i.e. the most upper-class) of the Antinomians--having had the bad luck to be caught up in Bay Colony politics--but a much more radical wing of the movement clearly existed. The incidents Hawthorne relates in "The Maypole of Merry Mount" are thoroughly historical; apparently the extremists had decided to renounce Christianity altogether and revert to paganism. If they had succeeded in uniting with their Indian allies the result might have been an Antinomian/Celtic/Algonquin syncretic religion, a sort of 17th century North American Santeria."

Thing is, a variant of this did come to pass in some pockets of Appalachia; I'm a product of it.

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

(cont.)

"...Throughout the 18th century, North America also produced a number of drop-out "tri-racial isolate communities." (This clinical-sounding term was invented by the Eugenics Movement [...].) The nuclei invariably consisted of runaway slaves and serfs, "criminals" (i.e. the very poor), "prostitutes" (i.e. white women who married non-whites), and members of various native tribes. In some cases, such as the Seminole and Cherokee, the traditional tribal structure absorbed the newcomers; in other cases, new tribes were formed. Thus we have the Maroons of the Great Dismal Swamp, who persisted through the 18th and 19th centuries, adopting runaway slaves, functioning as a way station on the Underground Railway, and serving as a religious and ideological center for slave rebellions. The religion was HooDoo, a mixture of African, native, and Christian elements, and according to the historian H. Leaming-Bey the elders of the faith and the leaders of the Great Dismal Maroons were known as "the Seven Finger High Glister."

"The Ramapaughs of northern New Jersey (incorrectly known as the "Jackson Whites") present another romantic and archetypal genealogy: freed slaves of the Dutch poltroons, various Delaware and Algonquin clans, the usual "prostitutes," the "Hessians" (a catch-phrase for lost British mercenaries, drop-out Loyalists, etc.), and local bands of social bandits such as Claudius Smith's.

"An African-Islamic origin is claimed by some of the groups, such as the Moors of Delaware and the Ben Ishmaels, who migrated from Kentucky to Ohio in the mid-18th century. The Ishmaels practiced polygamy, never drank alcohol, made their living as minstrels, intermarried with Indians and adopted their customs, and were so devoted to nomadism that they built their houses on wheels. Their annual migration triangulated on frontier towns with names like Mecca and Medina. In the 19th century some of them espoused anarchist ideals, and they were targeted by the Eugenicists for a particularly vicious pogrom of salvation-by-extermination. [...] As a tribe they "disappeared" in the 1920's, but probably swelled the ranks of early "Black Islamic" sects such as the Moorish Science Temple. I myself grew up on legends of the "Kallikaks" of the nearby New Jersey Pine Barrens [...] The legends turned out to be folk-memories of the slanders of the Eugenicists, whose U.S. headquarters were in Vineland, NJ, and who undertook the usual "reforms" against "miscegenation" and "feeblemindedness" in the Barrens (including the publication of photographs of the Kallikaks, crudely and obviously retouched to make them look like monsters of misbreeding).

"The "isolate communities"--at least, those which have retained their identity into the 20th century--consistently refuse to be absorbed into either mainstream culture or the black "subculture" into which modern sociologists prefer to categorize them. In the 1970's, inspired by the Native American renaissance, a number of groups--including the Moors and the Ramapaughs--applied to the B.I.A. for recognition as Indian tribes. They received support from native activists but were refused official status. If they'd won, after all, it might have set a dangerous precedent for drop-outs of all sorts, from "white Peyotists" and hippies to black nationalists, aryans, anarchists and libertarians-- a "reservation" for anyone and everyone! The "European Project" cannot recognize the existence of the Wild Man-- green chaos is still too much of a threat to the imperial dream of order.

"Essentially the Moors and Ramapaughs rejected the "diachronic" or historical explanation of their origins in favor of a "synchronic" self-identity based on a "myth" of Indian adoption. Or to put it another way, they named themselves "Indians." If everyone who wished "to be an Indian" could accomplish this by an act of self- naming, imagine what a departure to Croatan would take place. That old occult shadow still haunts the remnants of our forests (which, by the way, have greatly increased in the Northeast since the 18-19th century as vast tracts of farmland return to scrub. Thoreau on his deathbed dreamed of the return of "...Indians...forests...": the return of the repressed)."

[iampixiedust.livejournal.com]

Thanks for these examples. They're very new to me. Wish these groups could have survived longer. As it is, they must have been either killed off or absorbed by state power.

In the 1970's, inspired by the Native American renaissance, a number of groups--including the Moors and the Ramapaughs--applied to the B.I.A. for recognition as Indian tribes. They received support from native activists but were refused official status.

The mistake they made here was to try to live by state terms -- a sort of non-citizenship through citizenship, like natives are today. By acknowleging the nation's right to label, and by trying to use its institutions as its own raison d'etre they signed away any hopes of continuing to exist as a nomadic tribe.

This is why successful nomadic Gypsies have survived: because they have always defied citizenship. Those of them who now live on some agreed terms with the state tend to have identity problems, live in poverty, and are a society in decline.

The "European Project" cannot recognize the existence of the Wild Man-- green chaos is still too much of a threat to the imperial dream of order.

I don't like the term "green chaos" here, but this is very true, not only of Europe but of any state. Nomadism is the only threat to the state, and now it is nearly extinct. Without nomadic tribes to hold the state back, instituionalized society will grow to proportions that will suffocate the globe.

[19091977.livejournal.com]

wicked prophetic whispering there whimsy. i love the black moorish science characters... it's all a bit like the afro-futurism i was rambling about the other day, that's the next step. SPACE. if not in reality, at least in mind. it's a large place to call home & it makes planet earth a permanent alien landscape, which it feels like quite often.

&, i was quite amazed by the eastern USA's reforestation... it's crazy. & you're spot on about the ghosts.

[(Anonymous)]

I reject your claims of us naming ourselves as Indian. What would be the advantage to us? History shows Blacks were treated better than Indians in N.J. I am one of the tribal historians and we know who we are. We had to have our Geneology done for the government and they reaffirm what we already knew. Being recognized by the State of NJ as an Indian tribe doesn't come on word alone. We have proof. We lost Fed recognition because of casino fears and we applied for Fed Rec. 4 years before casinos even came into play.

[iampixiedust.livejournal.com]

My American Literature professor discussed the notion of Temporary Autonomous Zones. That was long before I heard about Nomadology. The notion of the blank page. But I find that this is very similar to what militaries around the world try to do. The military is the State become temporarily nomadic, for purposes of war, possibly the destruction of another state -- because only the nomadic war machine is capable of destroying a state. From this example and from the example of the pioneers, and from Guattari and Deluze's conclusions, I arrive at the conclusion that all temporary nomadic states are unethical. Nomadism is ethical, however, as a permanent lifestyle of an ongoing tribe -- and in its pursuit of holding back the state.

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

I can see why one would come to the conclusion that nomadic war machines are unethical, but having never read Guattari and Deluze I'm not sure I follow your conclusion that all temporary nomadic states are therefore unethical. And how are we to abolish governments that the people no longer want? I think the state can be destroyed by many means other than war machines, mostly from within. Is there a reason why this might not be so?

[iampixiedust.livejournal.com]

I think the state can be destroyed by many means other than war machines, mostly from within. Is there a reason why this might not be so?

This is the reason I work for the government. There might be ways and I'm trying to see what influence I can have. Maybe one day I'll just get fed up and join the Gypsies.

I'm not sure I follow your conclusion that all temporary nomadic states are therefore unethical.

It's difficult to summarize Deluze and Guattari on this, their work is very detailed and the reading is difficult. The basic points I've already made. What I meant to say is not exactly that the nomadic war machine is unethical, though it may be, but that when any state forms a temporary nomadic war machine to defeat another state, that's unethical. My other point, about the pioneers, is that their temporary nomadism was also unethical, because it served only to transport old European beliefs and traditions to another part of the world and to defeat the culture that existed there already.

[19091977.livejournal.com]

i was going to say that one can cut out renting & owning by having a lovely pink, plastic tank to live inside of & roll it about when you get bored. if the oceans rise like THEY say they're going to, & what with the job insecurity, i think a new nomadism is ripe for the picking. however, it shouldn't be done with jet planes, but slowly & through all of those interesting places on the ground. OR, we just need to get on with it & expand into outer space so we can have a new wild frontier.
space cowboy out.

[iampixiedust.livejournal.com]

Pyncheon and nearly every rational mind living today has already made the point that it's just a pipe dream to believe in space as a new frontier. This is just a desparate faith of North Americans, their way of trying to continue their past, the history of the expansion of the state into the free space of the nomad.

What do jet planes have to do with it? Don't see these as nomadic elements, but as military and state tools.

I appreciate your positivism, but I think the new nomadism is not quite yet ripe, still very green and raw.