Redisribution of Property

[TheOppressedMass]

I'm a bit confused as to how exactly the socialist system will be able to re-distribute property equally among the masses.

All houses are different sizes, so this might pose a problem for the redistribution.

[Dr Mindbender]

A house can home more than a certain amount of people depending on it's size.


I don't accept that as a argument against redistribution of property.

Larger houses or mansions can be restructured internally to make them more appropriate to the needs of individuals and family units.

[autotrophic]

It's not so much about making everybody's houses exactly the same, it's more about giving everybody equal access to resources needed to build their own places to live. This is opposed to the capitalist system, where you must work for a boss and landlord in order simply have a place to live.

There would be a lot of variety of housing types in a socialist system, but the main thing is that everybody gets a place to live and is able to control their own home, rather than it being controlled by the state, landlords, apartment renters etc. If there is an empty building, people would be free to occupy it and maintain it, rather than in the capitalist system where it would go to waste. Hotels, and large buildings could provide housing for many who are homeless, or are moving out of their home, or victims of a disaster (fires, etc)

I'm not sure if this applies to state socialism, but it is more or less what most anarchists and probably communists advocate

[BobKKKindle$]

It's fairly easy to convert a large house into a number of apartments, and this would be carried out very quickly and effectively with the aid of rational planning and democratic management. The abolition of all housing problems is something we could achieve literally within a few days of taking power or even during the process of overthrowing capitalism - many members of the bourgeoisie currently own enormous properties and/or multiple houses, and property speculators currently refuse to rent the properties they own because they are waiting for the price to increase despite pressing shortages of cheap housing, and the seizure of these buildings would allow us go give each person or family unit enough space to live a fulfilling and comfortable existence. After this initial redistribution, it would be easy to conduct a census each year in order to determine how many houses would need to be built to account for population increases and people changing home.

January's issue of Socialist Review covered some of these issues in an article entitled 'Socialism Can Work (http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=10671)'