Members of the CPGB-ML & Red Youth met on Saturday to discuss the housing crisis and how to put the socialist solution to the working class.
Branches from Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen were represented and heard about the appalling situation in all three cities. From slum conditions all round to the rocketing costs in Aberdeen, it was clear that so long as housing was treated as a commodity to be bought and sold workers would find no salvation from the ravages of the market. Whilst a one bed flat today costs Scottish workers half their salary or more, in the Soviet Union it was a mere 4%.
There are over 700,000 empty houses in Britain, 19,845 of them in London (the London properties alone are worth £9.4bn in total). In recent years, hundreds of thousands of half-built homes have been demolished in order to preserve high prices.
Despite a minor slow-down in the rate of increase of property prices, and a minor panic after Brexit, our ruling class is using every trick available to it to keep prices high.
The CPGB-ML holds that houses should be homes for people, not investment opportunities for billionaires. The rights to shelter and to a secure family life are fundamental human rights.
By its utter inability to solve the housing question and meet this basic need of working people, the capitalist system is providing yet more proof that it is well past its use-by date and due for demolition.
Read more here in Proletarian
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