Paper Money, Paper Homes: How the Financialization of Housing Ruined Housing Policy

There is a global housing affordability crisis; the cost of housing has skyrocketed at rates that far outpace real wages. Using a Marxist lens, I look at the dynamics of commodification and financialization in a capitalist land market. My thesis argues that the existence of a profit motive undermines the potential for affordability to be prioritized. Financialization specifically has entrenched and intensified this process of ‘housing-for-investment’ over ‘housing-for-shelter’. My thesis explores modern political solutions to this crisis, performing a comparative analysis of inclusionary zoning by-laws introduced in Toronto and New York City. This analysis dissects how capitalist-oriented housing affordability policies are structurally bound to the same dynamics of profit-over-people; thus, they can never produce affordable housing. Alternatively, I propose a series of non-reformist reforms and radical political approaches to decommodify housing and remove its tender from the private market altogether.