From a society of workers to a society of property owners
In 2007, 87% of the Spanish population became home owners while the European average is 60%.
To explain this anomaly, in respect to surrounding countries, there is no doubt that there exists, more than in other places, a culture of ownership in our country. This thesis explains the eagerness of the buyer within Spanish society. One spoke about proprietary culture like it was some lucky genetic code written into our DNA which distinguished us from other mere mortals and determined our behaviour. A form of expression known as the spanish way of life.
Regardless, the propensity for people to purchase a home rather than rent one was not always like this. In 1950, 50% of the population lived in rental units with the figure increasing to 90% in larger cities, such as Madrid or Barcelona. In the span of fifty years, however, these figures reversed. Thus, in 1981 the relation between property owners and renters was 7 to 3, which reached its maximum in 2007 with a ratio of 9 to 1. How can one explain such a radical transformation?
In the last decades of the Franco dictatorship, economic and housing policy experienced a twist that conditioned this evolution. Policies that continued into the current Democratic stage in which economist José Manuel Naredo demonstrated was "a continuation that would allow not just a change in the culture of renting in favour of ownership but also transform Spain into a European leader within this field, making the real estate business a national industry".
Ownership, a mechanism for social control
In 1957, José Luis Arrese, the first minister of Housing in Spanish history, in a speech to the Parliament where he presented a series of proposals to address the problem of the proliferation of slums emerging from new waves of migration from the countryside to cities, uttered a phrase which over the years has since become celebrated: "We want a country of owners not proletarians". This sentence marked a turning point and constituted a guiding principle for a new housing policy during the late Francoism years. The home ownership project from the dictatorship served a dual purpose. On one hand, it avoided potential sources of conflict between the State, owners of social housing and tenants, workers and other sectors of the population. On the other hand, property ownership could act a mechanism for social control, converting insubordinate spirits into disciplined and moral individuals.
"Man, when he doesn't have a home, takes over the street, pursued by his temper, becomes subversive, bitter, violent...." José Luis Arrese
This line of action was not, however, a unique commitment made by the Franco regime, nor made only within our country's borders. Turning a society of workers into a society of proprietors also became a objective for Margaret Thatcher within turbulent political England in order to diffuse the revolutionary tendencies of a disaffected working class. This was a brilliant strategy to align the interests of a discontented working class with the conservative elite. Whoever had a property title also had something to lose, concrete interests to defend and little time left for conspiring.
At the end of the twentieth century, Spain's incorporation into the global economy facilitated public access to credit. Widespread indebtedness was a new form of social governance. With 40-year mortgages and monthly payments, the public, in order to fulfill his or her mortgage obligations, had no other option but to accept the impositions placed on them by the labour market. In many situations, members of the public were forced to work under precarious conditions and in low-paid jobs.
On the other hand, during the developmental stage of the 1960s, the primacy of housing, understood as a of primary and necessary good required to fulfill a social function took a back seat to a new understanding of its purpose. More than an asset, housing became increasingly seen as an investment. More than an end in itself, it became a means for generating jobs and economic growth.
If during during late Francoism the construction of social housing was used as a counter-cyclical Keynesian means for fighting unemployment and stimulating domestic demand, during the transition towards democracy this tendency was even further enhanced as the residential construction sector emerged as the cornerstone of economic growth. During the height of the bubble, the real estate sector accounted for 18% of the GDP (30% if we take into account all the indirect economic activities that proliferated under construction) and gave jobs to 13 % of the population, much more than 6,7% in Germany or 8 % in the United Kingdom. In this way, the residential construction sector turned into the primary resource of the Spanish economy, an engine for creating precarious and temporary work that conditioned the development of a voracious economic model, short-term as well as devastating towards the land. The construction industry, in the same way as a cancerous metastasis, reproduced itself throughout the entire geographical area, sweeping away and replacing other types of industrial activity.
"If one thing was bound and firmly tied to the dictatorship, it was the housing policy, the inheritance of an urban model and it's practice of huge short term profit".
J. M. Naredo
Maintaining this model was no easy task. The State had to constantly attend to the private sector and facilitate the necessary conditions for the production machinery to never stop running. It is only within this logic that it is possible to explain the Land Act approved by an absolute majority by the Partido Popular in 1998, and baptized as the "Law of everything developable. This was a law that liberalized sensitive issues such as soil classification and decentralized, without establishing any type of control, in accordance with competences in the field of land-planning, favoring speculation and corruption. A law that permitted an accelerated rate of growth based on the real estate sector to unexpected limits. At this point minister of Finance, Rodrigo Rato, stated" "The truth is that we are currently settled on a long period of growth with few uncertainties. This is indisputable. The most important thing is that this is a sustainable growth model". Between 1998 and 2007, the housing stock grew to 6,6 million.
At the same time, if one wanted the real estate business to survive under this model, it was essential to sell all the homes constructed annually. Therefore, democratic governments in turn adopted the necessary measures for feeding a demand capable absorbing the available supply of both land and existing homes. Policies implemented by the State shaped the propensity for citizens to agree to buy a home by taking on massive debts, at the expense of renting or forms of ownership.
In this context, a new global framework and new twist in the field of language, economic and domestic policy reforms reconfigured the public imagination, reducing it to the minimum horizon of possibilities when it came to accessing a home and setting the stage for a culture of ownership within our country.
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