The Three Day Workweek

Although it's the norm throughout much of the world, the seven day week is a completely arbitrary entity. Indeed, it is even more arbitrary than the time-unit of the week itself. Days and months, of course, correspond to natural chronological cycles - and that there would be an intermediate unit between the day and the lunar month is entirely understandable. That it happens to be seven days, instead of six or eight, or five or ten, however, doesn't really seem to make very much sense. It is a custom; one extending into the earliest days of civilization, to be sure, but it is nevertheless merely a custom. And even while the ancient Hebrews, and the ancient Babylonians, and the Sumerians before them, shared this custom, the seven-day week was not always the supreme time-unit acting as the intermediary between the day and the month in the ancient world.

Among the most influential civilizations of human history, the ancient Egyptians had a ten-day week. The Celts, it is believed, had a nine-day week. And until the third century of the common era, the Romans enjoyed an eight-day week. Over on the other side of the planet, the Mayans and the Aztecs each had a thirteen-day week. And examples of shorter weeks are not difficult to come by.

Modernly, the French instituted a ten-day week - the decade - in the years following the French Revolution. And in the twentieth century, shortly after seizing power in 1917, the Bolsheviks instituted a five-day week. In 1931, this five-day week (which repeated 72 times throughout the calendar year) was lengthened by one day into a six-day week. But then in June of 1940, less than a year after signing the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union returned to a seven-day week.

Of course, the length of the week and the number of days one is expected to work (and just what one is working for in the first place) during that week are two altogether different things. One could have a four day week, for example, but get only one day off. And, then again, one could imagine a five day week that has two days off, or even three. And while it goes without saying, it nevertheless ought to be pointed out that the whole notion of getting days off in the first place implies relations of coercion. For in many respects the one who decides that one can have a day off is the same one who decides that one must have a day on.

On Monday mornings, returning to my place of work from an insufficiently restful two-day break, I find it difficult to not reflect upon the arbitrariness of not only the length of the workweek, but of the things produced during the course of these workweeks. As far as the former is concerned, my colleagues do, too; for again and again, in response to still other colleagues' questions concerning how their weekends were, they express my very feelings. Too short, they reply. And it's not just at my work site that I hear these two words. I hear them all over the place. On the train, at the cafe, in the elevator, everyone seems to be using them.

How was your weekend?
Too short. How was yours?
Mine was too short, too.

At this point it might do us well to recall that the very word calendar is derived from the Latin calendarium - which designates a banker's account book. And, in light of this, it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise to see that domination (domingo) is never too far removed from time-keeping in the first place. Indeed, demarcated units of time function in a manner roughly analogous to how walls function in the physical world, cutting off access to units of space (and lending to their respective commodifications). Of course, beyond their problematic functions, walls offer support and structure vital for people's health - reflecting the very ambiguity of health as, on the one hand, the security of ease and, on the other, the security of prisons and coercion.

And while many might argue that the most hygiecratic thing would be to get rid of all mandatory temporal designations, along with their attendant expectations, in the short term a variation on the week - e.g. a shortened workweek - would be politically expedient. To be sure, it is a testament to the backwardness of the present political situation that the very notion of a three or four-day workweek, which was a standard facet of political discourse in the 1920s and 1930s, is not discussed at all - excepting some of the discussions stemming from the subject of the too-short weekend. If this issue were resuscitated, however, and a three-day workweek were brought about, it would be a considerable step toward a more hygiecratic world.  

Wade Page and Rage

published on counterpunch as Mass Murders and the New Economy


While it may appear to be the case, it is not a coincidence that only two weeks and two days after James Holmes committed mass murder in Aurora, Colorado, another mass murder erupted in a Sikh temple in Wisconsin. Police investigating the crime have remarked that the death of the killer, Wade Page, will very likely prevent them from discovering his motive. But would learning Page's Nazi-inspired motive really shed much light on the incident? Even if it somehow did, though, it is unlikely that the discovery of Page's motive would contribute to our understanding of the wider phenomenon of mass murders. Because mass murders are not strictly individual but social problems, an individual's motives are not adequate to explain them. Rather, one must consider the larger social picture.

Two days after this most recent mass murder in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, another mass murderer, Jared Loughner, who killed six people and wounded 13 in Tucson, Arizona, last year, was back in the news when it was learned that a plea arrangement had been reached in his prosecution. This group of events - attributed by some to mere chance - may reasonably lead others to wonder whether we are seeing more mass murders than we usually see. That is, are we seeing more mass murders than normal?  And, if so, how many mass-murders is normal?

Because other countries - like Canada and Switzerland - have comparable levels of gun ownership, but nothing close to the rates of gun-related murders, it seems unlikely that chance explains the prevalence of gun violence in the U.S. But even if, for the sake of argument, these mass murders simply were the random acts of maniacs, one must give a little thought to the conditions which produce so many murderous random acts of maniacs. What seems to be a more persuasive explanation is that these murders are symptomatic of systematic pressures and forces and the damage they wield. Although obvious, it nevertheless ought to be pointed out that as living organisms people can only handle so much pressure, or stress, before they break down in some way. Also well known is the fact that the economic and technological pressures and stresses people are experiencing today, among others, are historically unprecedented both in their intensities and in their pervasiveness. Indeed, the intensification of these social pressures and forces is indistinct from the transformation of diffused forms of violence into concentrated violence.

Among the most persistent of these pressures are those attending work. Exacerbating the pressures and forces attending the widespread unemployment that is part of the new economy - compromising the stability of even those who have jobs - people across the job spectrum are working significantly more hours for considerably less pay. Factoring in rising costs of housing, education, transportation, etc., we see that people are experiencing far more pressures compared to the recent past, while at the same time seeing the reduction of those supports (income, rest, etc.) that allowed them to sustain these pressures. As a result, these pressures become more intense, concentrated, and destructive.

To understand the dynamic at play, it is important to mention that for its entire history (excepting economic slumps) until the mid-1970s the United States experienced a labor shortage. As such, throughout U.S. history wages for workers generally steadily increased. One result of this was that people began to believe that ever-rising wages were just part of the deal that working people in America enjoyed. Beginning in the 1970s, however, four significant socio-historical shifts led to the end of these rising incomes. In addition to the rise of automated production, the introduction of computers, and the entry of women into the workforce, much of the European and Asian world became economic competitors. As such, beginning in the mid-1970s, the United States' historic labor shortage finally came to an end. Consequently, the perennially rising incomes that U.S. workers enjoyed flat-lined. The costs of living - and their attendant pressures - however, only continued to rise. Finance and credit ballooned to cover this gap. Recently, however, this bubble burst, leaving all but the wealthy with even less support than before while exposed to considerably more pressures.

It ought to be noted that not all workers in the U.S. enjoyed this privileged rising income equally. In many respects these incomes were contingent on income inequality, imperialism, and the ideologies that help reproduce these. People of color and women, for example, historically experienced regular discrimination, and grew more or less accustomed to this unfair treatment - not to mention people abroad, toiling under merciless conditions for corporate profit (from which the US working class directly benefited). For many white men, however, who as children were taught the story of the U.S. as the land of opportunity, the recent switch to this new economic reality of having little, if any, future came less as an already well-established fact of life than as an enraging novelty.

In addition to attributing this most recent mass murder in Wisconsin to mere chance, people will point out that Wade Page was a racist. And though he undoubtedly was, this still explains little, for racists are very common, but very few commit even regular murder, let alone mass murder. Although the FBI is classifying the murders as an act of terrorism, this classification also does little to explain what unfolded. It's classification as a hate crime, however, may bring more light to the analysis, as the categories of hate and rage enjoy a considerable degree of overlap. Indeed, when the phenomenon of decreasing incomes and unemployment is coupled with the fact that white men, whatever their income, historically received a supplement, or bonus, accorded in the form of white supremacist ideologies (the value of which, in the age of Obama, is also perceived to be depreciatory), it is not that surprising to see that virtually all mass murderers are young, white men.

And while it is relevant that Wade Page was unemployed and had recently lost his home, it must be noted that the economic pressures discussed above comprise only one part of the picture. The forces and pressures attending a sped-up, high-tech world of instantaneous communications, as well as the pressures accompanying an increasingly polluted ecosystem - one that is taxing, more and more, people's immunological resistances - not to mention the pressures of never-ending wars, are stressing our collective psyche to its breaking point. Indeed, it is a tragic irony that while Jared Loughner sits in a courthouse in Arizona, confessing his guilt for his own mass murder, that very same court is administering the persecution of scapegoated immigrants - that is, it is distributing/concentrating pressures according to the same scapegoating, racist logic that the killer Wade Page employed.

Of course, most people do not crack from these pressures; most react to the pressures of work, etc., by getting more and more depressed. Indeed, it is not just another coincidence that the little relief people find from these pressures - which shouldn't be confused with support - is derived from pharmaceuticals. Nor is it a coincidence that anti-depressants are the most highly prescribed drugs in the country. Unsurprisingly, in other fully industrialized countries, where people enjoy between six and eight weeks of vacation annually as a matter of law, there is less stress, less depression, and less murder. In the U.S., by contrast, people are getting less and less rest. Consequently, the pressures increase. That these destructive forces and pressures are systematic, and are integral to the process of profit and wealth extraction and concentration, is not discussed by those who seek to explain these mass murders through appeals to chance, or to morality. Whether this is intentional or not is open to conjecture. What is beyond doubt, however, is the fact that we are living in a world of increasing pressures and diminishing supports - of the increasing concentration of diffused forms of violence. What is also beyond dispute is the fact that more and more people are growing depressed in this country - and, as our economic model spreads, throughout the world. Not all become merely depressed, however. More and more are being driven into murderous rage.

The Hygiecratization of New York

As global warming accelerates, and more and more of the hydrosphere melts from ice into its liquid and vaporous forms, winter snow packs increasingly disappear well before the beginning of summer. Not only does this result in an increase in droughts and desertification, it also leads to massive flooding.

Beyond drought caused by diminishing snow packs, ancient aquifers (whose volumes accumulated over the course of millennia) are being pumped dry across the globe. Moreover, waterways and other water sources are being polluted at unprecedented rates. Because of these conditions, conservative projections estimate that within the next 13 years half of the planet's population will have severely restricted access to water. Because water is absolutely vital for life, protecting this resource ought to be our most urgent political and economic priority. In spite of this, it is increasingly apparent that the political-economy presently reigning across the globe is neither capable nor very much interested in handling this unfolding situation. What is less clear, but no less the case, is that the capitalistic political-economic system - which in many respects created the present crisis - is by its very design bound to pursue monetary profit over any other goal. As such, even were the capitalist political-economic system capable of handling the present water catastrophe, its operation would still be structurally opposed to the general health of people and the world, for a fundamental conflict of interest exists between health and profit. The hygiecratic political-economy, on the other hand, which sees the health of the people of the world and justice as homologous, subordinates the economy to the requirements of actual health.

Among the engineering and design projects developed to ameliorate some of the consequences of this water crisis are several coming out of hygiecratic discussions that involve rooftop funnels. Covered with photovoltaic paneling and aerodynamically designed to withstand the winds which often accompany rainfall, these large rooftop funnels would be built out of appropriate materials on the tops of most buildings. With their edges extending up to, or beyond, the perimeters of each funnel's respective roof, these funnels would collect rainwater, funneling the water into pipes which in turn would lead to subterranean cisterns. Filled with various filters, these pipes would purify the rainwater before storing it underground. Another set of pipes, leading to rooftop water towers situated inside the funnels, would further filter the water. That is, when the solar powered engine would pump the stored water to the rooftop water tower for distribution, the water would pass through further filters. Of course, the solar energy collected by the photovoltaic paneling would not be limited to pumping water; it could be applied to a variety of uses.

Another design suggestion emerging from discussions concerning the hygiecratization of New York involves the hygiecratization of the city's bridges. For a host of reasons cars are anti-hygiecratic and, as such, ought to be removed from the city. This would open up and quiet the streets, clean the air, and hygiecratize the city in many respects. In addition to walking and utilizing the city's hygiecratized (that is, free and cooperative) public transportation system, bicycles, and open-sided solar-powered street cars could convey people from place to place. Beyond the streets, however, the bridges would also be freed from cars. Consequently, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Williamsburg Bridge, the 59th Street Bridge, and the Macombs Dam Bridge, among others, could be transformed into flying parks, and hanging gardens. Because the hygiecratic political-economic system requires that people work no more than ten hours per week (unless voluntarily), people would have plenty of time to enjoy the hygiecratized city's spaces.

Further ideas for hygiecratization involve food production. Since the food needs of the city would likely surpass the production levels of the new agricultural spaces opened up by the hygiecratization of streets (street and lot gardens) and real estate (warehouses and high-rises converted into greenhouses), a new take on the Aztec agricultural method of the chinampa has been proposed.

A chinampa is more or less a small plot of land built on top of a lake and used to grow crops. Often referred to as 'floating gardens,' chinampas do not actually float on the water. Rather, they are more like artificial islands rising from shallow lakes. And though this is highly effective for agricultural uses on bodies of fresh water, difficulties arise when transposing this system onto the East River and the mouth of the Hudson River, which are saltwater. To accommodate this, the following solution has been proposed: Though anchored to obviate their floating away, unlike their Aztec progenitors the hygiecratic chinampas would truly float on the water. The crops would not, though, float directly on the water. Rather, a space would separate the soil in which the crops would grow from the saltwater. Placed between the crops would be various lenses. Magnifying and directing sunlight through the chinampa to the surface of the water, these lenses would heat the surface of the water. The steam produced thereby would rise, moistening the soil in which the crops would grow. Not only would this method open up a great deal of space on the surface of the East and Hudson Rivers for agricultural production by way of hygiecratic chinampas, it would contribute significantly to the hygiecratization of New York City. 

Separation of Economic Powers

The U.S. Constitution's separation of powers schema has been the topic of a considerable degree of discussion in hygiecratic circles. Not only does its tri-partite design perfectly mirror the structure of the Greek Fates (the three daughters of Necessity who, as one unified entity, represent force and power - contra Hygieia), even if it did manage to separate power - rather than merely stabilizing and preserving it - historical developments would have soon rendered such a separation impotent. For while the three branches of government ostensibly separate political power, they do nothing whatsoever to separate economic power; and while there has been a virtual plutocracy from the beginning of the U.S. republic, as the U.S. economy industrialized the economic powers of its wealthy classes grew by unprecedented bounds. Indeed, the United States' system of representational democracy, historically exclusive, in many respects represents the interests of the wealthy today to a degree that surpasses the concentration of power that the founders fought against in the 18th century.

In addition to the fact that a mere handful of conglomerates control virtually all of the newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, radio stations, television stations, movie studios, internet providers, and other mass media outlets on the planet - thereby possessing the power to determine the form and content of public opinion to an unprecedented degree - concentrated economic powers maintain their hegemonic position by tyrannical extensions of concentrated and diffused violence.

Beyond the concentrated violence of wars which are being fought for economic gain throughout the world, and the forces that are being extended domestically through the increasing militarization of police and their continuing abuses, the proliferation of prisons and historic levels of incarceration, this tyranny is responsible for an economic system that, among other things, is committing systematic ecocide. In addition to the general environmental destruction caused by endless production (unnecessary for human needs, but altogether vital for capitalism to function) and its attendant toxins, of those people "lucky" enough to have jobs at all, most ultimately succumb to altogether preventable occupational and stress-related diseases. Moreover, most of the money people manage to earn from these jobs is nearly instantly returned to the wealthy to service rents and other debts. To be sure, it is presently a widely known economic fact that in the United States the Top 400 people possess more wealth than the bottom 150,000,000 people combined, reflecting a disproportion of economic power that is hardly less than tyrannical.

Separating this concentration of economic powers is a matter of the most basic economic, social, and political justice. Not simply an issue of distributive justice, it is a matter of restorative justice as well since the resources gathered into such extreme concentrations of wealth were largely done so by way of systematic conquest, plunder, exploitation and wrongs requiring correction.

Because concentrations of economic power are inseparable from unjust conditions of poverty and disease, the health of the people of the world - which according to the maxim is the supreme law - requires a separation of economic powers no less than it requires a separation of political powers. To the degree that political arrangements reproduce conditions of political and economic inequality, they actively undermine conditions of health, harm the health of the people of the world, and demonstrate their own lack of legitimacy. As such, concentrations of power must be diffused so as to allow, among other things, all to possess conditions of health.





(conditions of health include, but are not limited to, collectively owned/free health care, housing, nutrition, education, communications, transportation, and unobstructed access to all other conditions necessary for health.)

Mortgages, Eminent Domain, the Police Power, and the Right to Housing

Since its appearance several weeks ago in early July, more and more attention is being focused on the perfectly legal plan of the people of the City of San Bernardino, California, to use their eminent domain power to bail themselves out of their disproportionate debt to their mortgagees (the banks).

As more and more people in San Bernardino are unable to make their mortgage payments - paying far more to the banks, it should be noted, than their homes are even worth - more and more mortgages are being foreclosed upon. As more and more people are being evicted from their homes following foreclosure sales, the increase in the vacant houses entering the housing market is further decreasing the value of those people's homes who aren't facing such crises. In addition to this consequence, one sees the further effect of the vacant homes falling into disrepair, further lowering not only their value but the value of the homes in the community in general. As such, there is an exponential downward spiral of diminishing home values, as well as of living conditions in San Bernardino.

Absent some type of intervention into this devaluation spiral, conditions for nearly all of the people of San Bernardino will only grow worse. Faced with few options, the City of San Bernardino has been considering using its eminent domain power to seize the devalued homes, paying just compensation to the owners of the mortgages. Because just compensation is the market value, rather than the housing-bubble-inflated value, the banks would lose a great deal of their (largely fraudulently derived) money should this plan come to pass. The city would then remortgage these homes at fairer, market values, allowing people to remain in their homes and correcting the exponential spiral of home devaluation.

One large question looms. How would the City of San Bernardino obtain the money to pay just compensation/market value to the banks for all of those homes? The answer is that the City of San Bernardino would borrow the money from a firm called Mortgage Resolution Partners. As a for-profit business, MRP are involved out of an interest in making a profit off of the whole affair. To be sure, using eminent domain to remortgage the homes was MRP's idea in the first place. It was they who approached the City of San Bernardino with the plan, selling it to them as a way to help the city out of its housing problem. Of course, the City of San Bernardino will have to pay MRP for their help, but in the long run they will wind up paying far less to MRP than to the banks.

While banks and their allies are howling that this is a horrible idea, that it will be destructive to the mortgage market and will damage contracts, raising constitutional issues involving the latter, among other things, those on the other side seem to think the plan to use eminent domain makes a considerable deal of sense and has few downsides. For example, Cornell University Law Professor Robert Hockett, one of MRP's advisers, argues that rather than harming markets, the eminent domain plan is actually a market-friendly way of responding to the issue since it will allow the market to correct itself. "This is actually a pro-market solution," he is quoted as saying in the Los Angeles Times article from July 6.

What appears to be overlooked in this story is the fact that the City of San Bernardino has an even stronger option than the utilization of their power of eminent domain. In some respects more powerful than the state's power of eminent domain is the state's police power. Unlike the power of eminent domain, though, which requires that the city pay just compensation to those whose properties have been seized, under its police power a city may regulate properties if doing so is necessary to protect the public health; and property regulations under the police power require no compensation at all if they are designed to prevent an "injury upon the community."

Because housing is a basic necessity, one which is necessary for people's health, it does not seem to be much of a stretch to argue that preventing deprivations of housing is necessary to protect the public health. And, so, because housing is fundamental to protecting public health, and the manner in which the banks have used their property is injurious to the community, and depriving people of homes is also injurious to the community, a popular government may use its police power to satisfy this public health need, regulating housing in a manner that prohibits evictions. While this could be construed to be a regulatory taking, limiting the banks' "right to exclude" which is a central right of property-holders, because it advances a compelling public interest in providing housing, and because the banks' property is burdened but no actual person's property or health is at all burdened, and because this type of regulation is necessary to prevent further injuries upon the community, it ought to fall within the city's police power to enact such a regulation. While those in possession of a property will be able to remain in possession, however, title will return to the banks. And though evictions from the property will be suspended, the occupants will be in adverse possession of the homes. As such, should the occupants satisfy the full statutory period for adverse possession, clean title can then be reconveyed to the occupants.

Because the public health requires housing, the City of San Bernardino (and not only the City of San Bernardino) ought to assert its police power - rather than its power of eminent domain - and so regulate those properties within its jurisdiction to prevent further injuries to the public health, allowing homes to be available to all. Of course, pursuit of such a path would require a revolutionary posture committed to a radical break from existing social relations.

Concentrated and Diffused Violence: Holmes, Drones, and Mass Murder

Version published on Counterpunch


In the aftermath of the most recent mass murder in the United States, the killing of twelve and the wounding of dozens of innocent moviegoers in Aurora, Colorado, one hears repeated expressions of bewilderment.

Beyond the calls for the execution of the perpetrator, and the pronouncements of his apparent insanity, beyond the stories of grieving families, the calls for stricter gun control laws, and pronouncements of sympathy for those suffering in Colorado, one sees above all the search for some type of explanation. People want this tragedy to make sense somehow, to understand it, and to thereby regain some measure of control over the situation and return to normalcy. The norm, of course, is the problem in the first place. 

One unfolding story recounts the efforts of police to enter the killer James Holmes' apartment. Believed to be booby-trapped, police hope to find clues among his effects that point to Holmes' motive. Once revealed, his motive can be regarded to some degree as the cause of the event. If such is the case, the cause can then be dismantled and order can be restored. But such is not the case. James Holmes is not the sole cause, or effect, of this violence, for this violence is not confined to Aurora, Colorado.

Once regarded as extremely anomalous, these mass killings now seem to occur somewhere in the U.S. every few years. And while these mass killings are notable for their concentrations of violence, to understand them it must not be overlooked that they arise from a social context in which violence, while often diffused and less dramatic, is nevertheless normal in this country. Beyond the mere representations of violence that one encounters in art and pop culture, which often are treated as scapegoats, daily life in the U.S. is organized according to degrees of pressure that amount to systematic, physical and psychological violence.

Among the calls for heightened gun control laws, it should be pointed out that far more lethal things than guns permeate our society. While it is widely recognized that these things cause vastly more harm than guns, for some reason the violence and death they wreak is considered somehow legitimate and acceptable. As such, even though car accidents, to focus on one quotidian example, daily produce on average numbers of fatalities that are the equivalent of the fatalities of six or seven Aurora-sized mass murders - and these occur every single day of every year - very few talk about initiating any type of 'car control.' Such a suggestion would most likely be met with ridicule and dismissed as unrealistic.

Traffic deaths, it will be pointed out, are distinct from gun deaths in several key respects. Among other things, the former are considered to be mere accidents while the latter are seen as intentional and, are therefore thought to be more egregious. A closer look, however, reveals that the relationship concerning intent is to some degree the reverse. On the level of policy making, for example, traffic deaths are, if not intentional, at least foreseeable, and could be prevented by specific policies, e.g. maximum speed limits of something like 10 miles per hour. Mass killings, on the other hand, though they may be committed intentionally by murderers, are, on the level of policy, less foreseeable and, as such, less preventable.

When one adds to the number of traffic fatalities the thousands who die annually of heart disease and cancers caused by traffic pollution - not to mention those who are injured in the oil extraction and production industry, including its military dimensions - the number grows substantially. These deaths, however, arise from violence that is even more diffused and, so, elicit minimal outcry, if any. But the fact of the matter is that these deaths occur not by accident so much as by a latent, de facto policy that sees such levels of violence as acceptable side effects of our economy's normal functioning. 

A profoundly significant aspect to the distinction between concentrated and diffused violence is the role the mass media plays in presenting information. Indeed, we largely see the world through this mediation. And the violence involved in a given story may be concentrated further or diffused further depending on the manner in which the story is framed. For example, the United States carries out regular drone attacks on targets in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen, among other places throughout the world. That many of these drone attacks kill civilians, causing just as much destruction and death as James Holmes' recent mass murder, are well-documented. Indeed, photographs of the shocked and traumatized people grieving in the immediate aftermath of these respective atrocities are remarkably similar. And it leads one to wonder whether it is not merely coincidental that the same culture that produces unthinking, unfeeling killing machines like drones, also produces unfeeling killers like Holmes. However, while the news industry concentrates a great deal of attention on the killings in Aurora, further (psychologically) concentrating the (physically) concentrated violence there, there is no comparable psychological concentration of the physically concentrated violence inherent in drone strikes. Rather, the relatively meager attention devoted to drone strikes serves to diffuse the physically concentrated violence involved, and rationalizations for their deployment diffuse the violence even further.

None of the above should be construed as providing any sort of justification for the gross horror of James Holmes' acts. Indeed, if there is anything to be learned at all from these murders it is perhaps that in general people are disgusted by violence in all of its manifestations. To be sure, in many respects it is only by way of complex ideological socialization and disinformation processes - further forms of diffusion - that this disgust of violence becomes disfigured from a rejection to an acceptance of violence. Those pronouncing their eagerness for a return to normalcy must recognize that this violence, both concentrated and diffused, is the norm. 

On Bloomberg's Micro-Units and the Vacancy Tax

On Monday, July 9th, Mayor Michael Bloomberg (whose personal fortune has ballooned over the years of his mayoralty from 5 to 22 billion dollars) announced a new architectural design contest. Contestants are encouraged to submit plans for new, tiny residential apartments. These 'efficiencies', it is remarked, are being designed for single people who live alone. This demographic, Bloomberg explained, is making up an increasingly large percentage of the city's tenants; most apartments, meanwhile, are built for multiple tenants. Ostensibly designed to meet this growing need, these 'micro-units' will be between 275 and 300 square feet. That this size violates the housing law stipulating that residential units shall not fall below 400 square feet is not important to Bloomberg. Implemented in the reform era following the publication of Jacob Riis' epochal How the Other Half Lives, which exposed the overcrowded and unsanitary conditions of the millions living in the city's tenements, these housing laws were tailored to eliminate some of the most serious harms, and diseases, endemic to life in densely populated urban areas. That they are very often unenforced even today ought to be addressed. Instead, like other regulations protecting public health, they are being rolled back.

Bloomberg's statement that the housing laws requiring minimum sizes were implemented in a different era - one which saw more people living together as families, compared to today's world of atomized, single people - and are therefore anachronistic overlooks a nexus of important historical, economic and demographic facts. Rather than moving out of the city to fulfill some sort of middle-class dream of suburban lawns and large automobiles, families have largely been forced out of New York City over the past few decades by economic policies such as these - policies that favor real estate developers, and the rich, over everyone else.

More than a policy designed to create new housing, this is foremost a redistribution of resources that will allow for far more rent to be collected by the landlords of this city. in other words, it is primarily a profit-making enterprise. That it meets housing needs at all is in many respects incidental. That the result will be to further decrease living standards, and the general health, is overlooked as well.

Among the many issues raised by this contest, there are far simpler ways to create housing for people than building these micro-units. It is well documented by the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development that, beyond apartments that are undergoing repairs or are otherwise uninhabitable, there are tens of thousands of vacant apartment units throughout the city that are available to meet the housing demand. These apartments, however, just sit vacantly, largely because their owners do not want to see the price of rent decline.

Instituting a vacancy tax of 100% of the going market rate on these vacant units would not only immediately open up housing, the increase in supply would lower the overall rent of apartments as well - contributing further to the creation of affordable housing. While such a policy would be very good for tenants, it would eat into the wealth of the owners. As such, this reasonable and easily implemented policy is being ignored in favor of this micro-unit plan which benefits the welfare of the rich, to the detriment of the 'general welfare.'