Promise Of The Day Six Property

Property, property all is property.  As the promises surge from the media spinners of the political parties the ideal of a property owning population comes very close to the populist and Distributist ideas of a century and more in which Three Acres and a Cow (see Wikipedia) were to be the right of all families.

Note, the word "democracy" is omitted, because in some ways it might not be like that at all as George Orwell observed.  This policy was one promoted by the then Liberal Party of the 1880's and Joseph Chamberlain and one way or another had a substantial following for some time.

See here for why this is relevant to current ideas on so many of us being property owners.  Inevitably, at the time it was a powerful political ploy given the extension of the franchise and the rapid changes occurring in the economy and population structure.

One reason why blogging has been thin recently arises from the history of one branch of the family tree which has led to some heavy work on the primary sources of that period.  It is typical of the experience of so many families and much of the population.

A key feature was that the combination of industrial urbanisation and communications and rapid population growth meant that there had to be a major leaving of the land and the land itself had to become far more productive in many sectors and together with mechanisation this meant large units.

In the present day we are seemingly in a very different world but it is possible that the forces that are in play now may mean that our recent notions of property ownership and distribution are as doomed as the ideal of Three Acres and a Cow was a century ago.

A small example is not far down the road.  Vacant offices are to become flat developments, the spending on this is lauded as economic growth.  But nobody is counting the effect of the 300 white collar and professional jobs lost and the reduction in business activity.  So while property prices keep going up it means that those who can really afford them keeps going down.

What we do have is increasing personal debt and if you are in debt then you are in thrall to the financial agencies providing it. Given the charges and costs of moving house and rising prices then a higher proportion of the population is in hock to the money men and these are the people funding the politicians who like the prelates of old throw out pence to the peasants who are tied to the land.

An essentially servile population largely tied to the land or its property equivalent or dependent on rentals governed and often allocated by a politically entrenched elite with the money flows controlled by an interwoven financial sector is not democracy in any real sense.

Back to the land is all very well but these days most rely on the supermarkets.  In the property market there are winners and losers, we are being tricked into believing we are all the winners but in reality if it does all go wrong then we will all be the losers.

Don't bet on it.