3.1.2.2.8 Use of Real Property
Individuals need housing to meet their existential needs. The use of living spaces leads to significant advantages, so the individual ensures it through ownership. However, ownership quickly assumes the subjective features by which the individual attributes a more substantial power than the one they objectively have in nature. Such ownership then becomes alienated from its nature, thus alienating the individual from their nature. In an alienated society, in a society that develops possession, the ownership of real estate becomes a simple, efficient and recognized form of presenting the individual’s power. In such a society, the individual becomes what they have. People’s alienated needs are insatiable, resulting in struggles between people to appropriate more valuable real estate and relentless exploitation of natural resources that the planet Earth cannot stand.
Inhabitants who have not acquired an apartment or house are forced to enter into a rent relationship with real property owners. They pay rent according to the supply and demand market principle, which generates income for the real property owners. Although the market rent contributes to a rational construction and use of real estate, it is not socially acceptable because it glorifies alienated values and thus creates problems for society.
The known alternative to private ownership of real property is social property. Social ownership needs to consider the equal right of all inhabitants to use real estate. However, society has not learned how to establish it. Besides that, society has not found an acceptable way to socialize private ownership, so it used to confiscate real property from private owners through revolutions. It is a seizure of the accumulated value of past labour of the real property owners and represents, as such, the injustice committed in the name of equality among people. Such injustice brought numerous problems to society.
Furthermore, it must be noted that society has not managed to resolve the problems related to the distribution of living spaces in social ownership. Real property building and its use carry out the bureaucratic administrative apparatus. As a general rule, candidates wait for years to acquire the right to use living space. The bureaucratic structure cannot monitor the changes in the housing needs of the tenants and even less so to meet their requests. Such social policy results in the disproportion of the real estate distribution, which always results in privileges for some members of society. Indeed, that develops alienation and antagonism in the community as well. It must be noted that users of the housing facilities in social ownership are not owners. Therefore, they do not maintain them and do not have enough responsible attitude toward the same.
The right to use real property in social ownership is less efficient than private rent-based distribution. However, an efficient policy of using real property in social ownership can be enabled by a socialist policy of real property utilization.
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In socialism, the right to work is determined by labour competition. Analogously, the use of individual housing needs to be provided by the rent competition of the people.
The rent-based competition of real property users requires associated ownership of real property by all commune inhabitants. This is possible to achieve by replacing the private ownership of real property with socialist past labour points, which would set up public ownership of real property.
Real estate owners do not have to sell their ownership to the commune if they do not wish to. In such a case, they can use the real estate and pay tax as they do now. However, real estate ownership will no longer represent the status of the individual. Instead, socialist past labour points will have this role. The sale of private ownership increases the number of past labour points, which increases incomes. Having a more significant amount of past work points will be very convenient. As past labour points are inheritable, it may be highly interesting for real estate owners to sell real property to commune.
The real property value is assessed freely following market value and under administrative control. Real estate owners whose residences are in other communes cannot be assigned past labour points because the past labour benefit would remain in one commune, while the income-based burden would be shifted to another. For this reason, real property owners from other communes need to sell their properties to their communes for money collectively owned by the commune’s inhabitants. Then the inhabitants may exchange that money for past labour points in their communes.
The rent-related policy needs to efficiently ensure rational and socially acceptable use of the real property, the residences and office premises in the first place. Therefore, society needs to provide an accessible insight into real property values. Records of all real estate can be maintained in the commune’s information centre with the technical description, position and the rent level.
The same real estate may bring more conveniences to one individual than another. Each inhabitant will auction up the real estate in the commune’s administrative centre that represents their most significant personal interest, following their income possibilities. The inhabitant offering the highest rent acquires the right to use the real property.
The procedure for acquiring the right to use real estate is straightforward. The highest stated rent becomes effective immediately and is subtracted from the income account of the user of the housing premise or of another privately used real property. If a user of real property can afford the rise in rent and wishes to continue using it, they will remain a user of this property. A competing party that did not manage to occupy the desired housing premise will further compete for another housing premise.
Each stated rent obliges the real estate user to use it for a certain period at the stated price. After such time expires, the real estate user may lower the rent level if allowed by a potential competitive real estate user.
The user of living space who cannot afford or does not wish to accept the highest stated rent will have to surrender the used real estate to a more potent competitor within a reasonable time. They will, during that time, seek a cheaper home to rent. Leaving real estate is inconvenient; however, it will be accepted to achieve greater collective conveniences.
Any space that may serve housing and business purposes is subject to the competition of real property utilization. If enterprises offered a higher rent than tenants, such real estate would become a business premise and vice versa. In this way, the market will determine the best real estate utility for society.
Real property such as public farming land and industrial facilities are subject to work competition. Therefore, it will not be necessary to pay any rent for such property as another form of competitive establishment for the right of its use.
Public spaces and facilities such as administration, courts, schools, health-care institutions, and clubs are set by the delegates’ decision of the commune’s assembly. The whole society uses such facilities for specific social purposes, and they, therefore, are not subject to the competition of the users.
Socialism does not need rent in the capitalist sense as a form of income because society owns real property. It also does not need rent as cash assets for constructing and maintaining the real property because such assets are appropriated from the collective spending fund. Socialism requires rents only to regulate the rights to real property utilization.
The amount of money intended for rents of all real estates in the commune is established by the sum of direct statements of all real estate users. Such money should be distributed to the commune’s population in proportion to their incomes and then added to their incomes. This means that each inhabitant will realize a stake from the amount of money intended for all rents in proportion to their income. A worker achieving a higher income has contributed more to the development of the society and thus has a greater right to use real estate. They exercise this right by getting a more significant amount of rent-related money. The amount of money intended for rent will be directly collected in full from the income accounts of tenants. Therefore, it will not obstruct the balance between buyers’ power and the value of produced commodities in the commune.
The distribution of real property will depend on the differences in the income levels of the commune inhabitants, the rent levels, and the value or, more precisely, on the necessity of the real property. More significant differences in income levels will allow more considerable differences in the power of rent-paying and, accordingly, more enormous differences in using real estate.
The more valuable real property will realize more effective rents and vice versa. A worker with a relatively low income who would wish to use a relatively more valuable real estate would set aside for the use of real estate the money intended for rent and a part of money intended for their spending in favour of the worker who uses a less valuable real property. The latter would, in this way, retain the entire income and a part of the money intended for rent, which will increase their consumer power.
Family communities rent housing spaces. Each family member realizes income in the commune. In this connection, larger family communities or groups of people get a larger payment and a greater possibility of using real estate.
The proposed system of real property distribution represents the most efficient, most just and most acceptable real estate distribution, regardless of the ratio of the quantity of housing premises and the number of tenants, because the competition of the real estate users on the market balances the best distribution. Moreover, such a form of rent will accept all positive characteristics of private and social renting and reject all negative aspects, which will contribute to the prosperity of society.
The competition of real property users would form an objective value of the real property. Where the rent value of a real estate is higher, there is a greater interest on the part of the population. This is a good indicator for earmarking cash assets for constructing real estate. The construction, demolition and adaptation of immovable property are carried out from the fund of collective spending.
Life in such a system will allow each inhabitant to examine the need for the living spaces based on practice. This will demystify the alienated premises of perceiving the real property value. Such an orientation may lower the importance of the turnover value of real estate and reduce it to a usable value. Society can then ensure the meeting of all inhabitants’ real property needs.
