Peter Marcuse: “The Myth of the Benevolent State” and afterword “The Myth of the Meddling State” (1978)
Housing Policy
Official (Mythical) Interpretation
Tenement House Acts
(1867, 1901)
To stem burgeoning problems of ill housing from
which the poor greatly suffered. The Act
prescribed minimum standards for fire safety,
ventilation, sanitation, and weather tightness of
roofs for accommodations rented to two or more
families.
Contends that this policy actually had its origins in the 1766 building regulation
(for fire prevention), the 1811 Commissioner’s Plan for New York (which laid
out Manhattan’s gridiron pattern to facilitate speculation in land), the 1843
cholera epidemics, and the 1863 immigrant draft riots. Thus, the Tenement
House Act does not signal an “enlightened” government attitude, but rather
State action to protect the existing socio-political-economic order from the
dangers of urbanization and industrialization (immigrant labor organization).
US Housing
Corporation (1918)
Established to help house industrial workers (and
their families) engaged in arsenals and navy
yards and in industries connected with and
essential to national defense.
Claims that the ancestry of this policy lies in the housing built for factory towns
such as Lowell, MA (textiles); Pullman, IL (railroads); Akron, OH (tires); etc.
These industries found it necessary to build housing for their workers if they
were to harness an adequate and reliable (read: controllable) workforce. WWI
created the same needs in US cities where wartime production was centered.
The housing that was publicly owned when built was sold to private owners
after the war.
Veteran Housing
Programs (Post WWI)
Assisted returning veterans to purchase housing.
Facilitated the purchase of single-family homes, opened market for this
typology of housing.
Housing Act of 1937
Removal of substandard housing with the
construction of new public housing.
The Act stemmed from concerns about social unrest among unemployed city
workers; it hoped to deal with that unrest, not through the provision of better
housing, but through the provision of jobs. The expansion of the supply of
housing could not be its goal, since more (substandard) housing was destroyed
than new housing was created.
Housing Act of 1949
Removal of substandard housing with the
construction of new public housing (urban
renewal). Calls for “a decent home and a suitable
living environment.”
The concern was not with rehousing slum dwellers but with tearing down slums
–especially those blighting adjacent areas to business sectors. Idea that the
private enterprise can do the job that public housing was supposed to do.
Business/economic interests satisfied through major expenditures in
infrastructure and highways. Suburban boom encouraged, new market for
housing. Flight to the suburbs and decline of inner cities. Isolation/segregation
of race. Reduction of public services available to the poor.
Assistance granted to private builders and
mortgage lending institutions in the form of
lending and guarantees.
Marcuse’s (Actual) Explanation
Section 8 (1974)
State-supported system of welfare granting the
payment of rent to the private owner through a
subsidy based on the occupant’s income.
Rationalizes organizes and improves housing for
the poor.
Permitted private interests to build, own, and manage housing intended for the
poor, with no limits on profit whatsoever besides those nominally imposed by
administratively determined rents.
Reaganomics
(1981-1989)
Housing markets can function very well
independently of state regulation. The state has
only meddled, in an effort to help the poor, and
in doing so has made things worse for them.
Allow markets self-regulate.
New myth of the “meddling state” is born. This is indicative of theory as
rationalization for political policy. Its purpose is clear: to justify the reduction
of state expenditures for social and redistributive programs, to make it easier
to eliminate programs limiting the freedom of the private sector to make a
profit. For housing, this means the elimination of government subsidies and
the reduction of public controls over development and use.