Author: Ronaldo Ramirez, Jorge Fiori Hans Harms and Kosta Mathey
Publication Date: 1991
It is generally acknowledged today that millions of citizens in the developing countries produce, exchange and consume their housing apparently independent of, or at varied distances from, market relations or state intervention. In this paper we will examine the individual experiences of a few families living in the shanty towns of Caracas the barrios in 1985 to show how that process of housing production is, at the same time, a slow process of housing commodification. It will be argued that although the population involved in it may benefit considerably from its development, widespread poverty makes commodification impossible, or extremely difficult to achieve, without the state helping significantly to complete the use value of housing.
The outcome of such an apparently contradictory process is dependent upon the form of housing policy adopted by the state and on the type of relationships mutually established between the state and the shanty town dwellers. Whether or not there is a role for the state in the field of low cost housing once it is totally commodified is a matter of contention not directly discussed in this paper. However, if the indispensable role played by the state in the completion of housing commodification disappears when this is achieved, then the continuation of state involvement in lowcost housing will need to be fully redefined.
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