The Housing Question

Last updated

"The Housing Question" is an essay by Friedrich Engels that was published in 1872. [1] [2] [3]

Contents

Content and analysis

Engels wrote:

The expansion of the big modern cities gives the land in certain sections of them, particularly in those which are centrally situated, an artificial, often economically increasing, value; the buildings erected in those areas depress this value . . . because they no longer correspond to the changed circumstances. . . . The result is that the workers are forced out of the center of the town, toward the outskirts.

Jacobin wrote that this resonates with current developments where inner city buildings are threatened with demolition. [1]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karl Marx</span> German-born philosopher (1818–1883)

Karl Marx was a German-born philosopher, economist, political theorist, historian, sociologist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His best-known works are the 1848 pamphlet The Communist Manifesto and the three-volume Das Kapital (1867–1894); the latter employs his critical approach of historical materialism in an analysis of capitalism and represents his greatest intellectual achievement. Marx's ideas and theories and their subsequent development, collectively known as Marxism, have exerted enormous influence on modern intellectual, economic and political history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Friedrich Engels</span> German philosopher (1820–1895)

Friedrich Engels was a German philosopher, political theorist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He was also a businessman and Karl Marx's closest friend and collaborator.

<i>New-York Tribune</i> Defunct American newspaper

The New-York Tribune was an American newspaper founded in 1841 by editor Horace Greeley. It bore the moniker New-York Daily Tribune from 1842 to 1866 before returning to its original name. From the 1840s through the 1860s it was the dominant newspaper first of the American Whig Party, then of the Republican Party. The paper achieved a circulation of approximately 200,000 in the 1850s, making it the largest daily paper in New York City at the time. The Tribune's editorials were widely read, shared, and copied in other city newspapers, helping to shape national opinion. It was one of the first papers in the North to send reporters, correspondents, and illustrators to cover the campaigns of the American Civil War. It continued as an independent daily newspaper until 1924, when it merged with the New York Herald. The resulting New York Herald Tribune remained in publication until 1966.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eliot Engel</span> American politician (born 1947)

Eliot Lance Engel is an American politician who served as a U.S. representative from New York from 1989 to 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented a district covering portions of the north Bronx and southern Westchester County.

Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialectical perspective to view social transformation. It originates from the works of 19th-century German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. As Marxism has developed over time into various branches and schools of thought, no single, definitive Marxist theory exists. Marxism has had a profound impact in shaping the modern world, with various left-wing and far-left political movements taking inspiration from it in varying local contexts.

<i>Progress and Poverty</i> 1879 book by Henry George

Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth: The Remedy is an 1879 book by social theorist and economist Henry George. It is a treatise on the questions of why poverty accompanies economic and technological progress and why economies exhibit a tendency toward cyclical boom and bust. George uses history and deductive logic to argue for a radical solution focusing on the capture of economic rent from natural resource and land titles.

<i>Deutsch–Französische Jahrbücher</i> Journal published in Paris by Karl Marx and Arnold Ruge

The Deutsch–Französische Jahrbücher was a journal published in Paris by Karl Marx and Arnold Ruge. It was created as a reaction to the censorship of the Rheinische Zeitung.

<i>Marx/Engels Collected Works</i> English edition of the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 50 volumes

Marx/Engels Collected Works is the largest existing collection of English translations of works by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Its 50 volumes contain publications by Marx and Engels released during their lifetimes, many unpublished manuscripts of Marx's economic writings, and extensive personal correspondence. The Collected Works, for the most part compiled by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the CC CPSU, was issued from 1975 to 2004 by Progress Publishers in collaboration with Lawrence and Wishart and International Publishers.

In Marxist theory, the Lumpenproletariat is the underclass devoid of class consciousness. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels coined the word in the 1840s and used it to refer to the unthinking lower strata of society exploited by reactionary and counter-revolutionary forces, particularly in the context of the revolutions of 1848. They dismissed the revolutionary potential of the Lumpenproletariat and contrasted it with the proletariat. Among other groups, criminals, vagabonds, and prostitutes are usually included in this category.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moses Hess</span> German philosopher (1812–1875)

Moses (Moritz) Hess was a German-Jewish philosopher, early communist and Zionist thinker. His socialist theories led to disagreements with Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. He is considered a pioneer of Labor Zionism.

Classical Marxism is the body of economic, philosophical, and sociological theories expounded by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in their works, as contrasted with orthodox Marxism, Marxism–Leninism, and autonomist Marxism which emerged after their deaths. The core concepts of classical Marxism include alienation, base and superstructure, class consciousness, class struggle, exploitation, historical materialism, ideology, revolution; and the forces, means, modes, and relations of production. Marx's political praxis, including his attempt to organize a professional revolutionary body in the First International, often served as an area of debate for subsequent theorists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marxist literary criticism</span>

Marxism was introduced by Karl Marx. Most Marxist critics who were writing in what could chronologically be specified as the early period of Marxist literary criticism, subscribed to what has come to be called "vulgar Marxism". In this thinking of the structure of societies, literary texts are one register of the superstructure, which is determined by the economic base of any given society. Therefore, literary texts are a reflection of the economic base rather than "the social institutions from which they originate" for all social institutions, or more precisely human–social relationships, are in the final analysis determined by the economic base.

Socialism with Chinese characteristics is a set of political theories and policies of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that are seen by their proponents as representing Marxism–Leninism adapted to Chinese circumstances and specific time periods, consisting of Deng Xiaoping Theory, Three Represents, Scientific Outlook on Development, and Xi Jinping Thought. According to CCP doctrine, Xi Jinping Thought is considered to represent Marxist–Leninist policies suited for China's present condition while Deng Xiaoping Theory was considered relevant for the period when it was formulated.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) frames its ideology as Marxism adapted to the historical context of China, often expressing it as socialism with Chinese characteristics. Major ideological contributions of the CCP's leadership are viewed as "Thought" or "Theory," with "Thought" carrying greater weight. Influential concepts include Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, and Xi Jinping Thought. Other important concepts include the socialist market economy, Jiang Zemin's idea of the Three Represents, and Hu Jintao's Scientific Outlook on Development.

<i>Das Kapital</i> Foundational theoretical text of Karl Marx

Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, also known as Capital, is a foundational theoretical text in materialist philosophy and critique of political economy written by Karl Marx, published as three volumes in 1867, 1885, and 1894. The culmination of his life's work, the text contains Marx's analysis of capitalism, to which he sought to apply his theory of historical materialism "to lay bare the economic laws of modern society", following from classical political economists such as Adam Smith, Jean-Baptiste Say, David Ricardo and John Stuart Mill. The text's second and third volumes were completed from Marx's notes after his death and published by his colleague Friedrich Engels. Das Kapital is the most cited book in the social sciences published before 1950.

In Marxist philosophy, the dictatorship of the proletariat is a condition in which the proletariat holds state power. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the intermediate stage between a capitalist economy and a communist economy, whereby the post-revolutionary state seizes the means of production, compels the implementation of direct elections on behalf of and within the confines of the ruling proletarian state party, and institutes elected delegates into representative workers' councils that nationalise ownership of the means of production from private to collective ownership. During this phase, the administrative organizational structure of the party is to be largely determined by the need for it to govern firmly and wield state power to prevent counterrevolution and to facilitate the transition to a lasting communist society.

Principles of Communism is a brief 1847 work written by Friedrich Engels, the co-founder of Marxism. It is structured as a catechism, containing 25 questions about communism for which answers are provided. In the text, Engels presents core ideas of Marxism such as historical materialism, class struggle, and proletarian revolution. Principles of Communism served as the draft version for the Communist Manifesto.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Communist League</span> International political party established in June 1847 in London, England

The Communist League was an international political party established on 1 June 1847 in London, England. The organisation was formed through the merger of the League of the Just, headed by Karl Schapper, and the Communist Correspondence Committee of Brussels, Belgium, in which Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were the dominant personalities. The Communist League is regarded as the first Marxist political party and it was on behalf of this group that Marx and Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto late in 1847. The Communist League was formally disbanded in November 1852, following the Cologne Communist Trial.

Dialectical materialism is a materialist theory based upon the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels that has found widespread applications in a variety of philosophical disciplines ranging from philosophy of history to philosophy of science. As a materialist philosophy, Marxist dialectics emphasizes the importance of real-world conditions and the presence of functional contradictions within and among social relations, which derive from, but are not limited to, the contradictions that occur in social class, labour economics, and socioeconomic interactions. Within Marxism, a contradiction is a relationship in which two forces oppose each other, leading to mutual development.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Monument to Friedrich Engels</span> Historic monument

The Monument to Friedrich Engels was installed in 1976 in Moscow near the metro station "Kropotkinskaya". The authors of the monument are sculptor I. I. Kozlovsky, architects A. A. Zavarzin and A. A. Usachev. The monument has the status of an identified cultural heritage site.

References

  1. 1 2 "150 Years Ago, Friedrich Engels Correctly Assessed What's Wrong With Housing Under Capitalism". Jacobin . Retrieved 2022-08-11.
  2. The housing question: tensions, continuities, and contingencies in the modern city. Najib B. Hourani, Edward Murphy. London. 2016. ISBN   978-1-317-02844-4. OCLC   1018167392.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)
  3. "150 Years of 'The Housing Question'". Tribune . Retrieved 2023-12-01.