Unravelling Home Ownership Ideology

Abstract

Home ownership has long been considered in terms of its ideological significance. This association arguably originates in the late nineteenth century with Engels who suggested that individual home ownership leads to the embourgeoisement of the working class and diminishes autonomy in the political sphere. Indeed, there is considerable evidence, as I shall identify in the course of this book, to suggest that states and political groups have historically recognized the significance of promoting working-class home ownership as a means to promote an individualist ethos and resist the growth of collectivist forms of social organization. Much of the debate on the socio-political salience of home ownership until the 1990s focused on tenure relations in these terms.