The Centre for Urban Research is pleased to host the launch of Mike Berry’s new book A Theory of Housing Provision under Capitalism as part of Social Science Week 2023.

The launch will feature a presentation by the author followed by a panel discussion with RMIT housing experts.

About the book

Housing is in the daily headlines as the governments struggle to respond to failures in rental and home ownership markets. The housing crisis has raised critical questions about the role of housing in capitalist societies. In his new book A Theory of Housing Provision under Capitalism, Professor Mike Berry offers the first coherent Marxist analysis of the central importance of housing in the social reproduction of capitalism as a whole. Berry argues that the circulation of capital and revenues though housing and the built environment helps explain how the capital-labour relation constrains housing outcomes while also being reproduced on an extended scale. He shows how housing is provided by the intervention of building, property and interest-bearing capital fractions; how the land question can be explained by a theory of urban land rent, drawing on Marx’s categories of differential and monopoly rent; how housing is vital to the extended reproduction of labour power, while also creating a semi-separate sphere of ‘home’ in which gender and demographic factors overlay and accentuate social class position. The modes, impact and drivers of state intervention in housing provision are seen to modify the patterns and pace of capital circulation through housing and the urban built environment with implications for shifts in class fragmentation and power relations.

About the author

Emeritus Professor Mike Berry has enjoyed a long and distinguished career in urban, regional and environmental policy studies. He is the author or co-author of over one hundred research reports, books and journal articles in housing and urban studies and has carried out innovative research into alternative financing approaches to expanding provision of affordable housing in Australia. Mike has advised policy makers at all levels of government. He served on the editorial boards of a number of academic journals, including Housing Theory and Society and Urban Policy and Research, and is a regular media contributor on matters of economic, social and environmental policy.

Discussion Panel

Professor Jago Dodson, Director, Centre for Urban Research (Chair)

Emeritus Professor David Hayward, former Dean, School of Global Urban and Social Studies

Dr Priya Kunjan, Research Fellow, Centre for Urban Research

Dr Liam Davies, Lecturer, Centre for Urban Research

This event can be attended in person or online.