Forum on Gentrification and Displacement

[ahoc-somerville.livejournal.com]

Gentrification and Displacement: What do they mean?  What can we do about them in Somerville?

Thursday, May 14th, 6 PM
at the Elizabeth Peabody House
277 Broadway (at Broadway & Grant St--#89 Bus from Davis Sq.)
Somerville, MA 02145
 
Please join us to:

• Watch the film "BOOM: the Sound of Eviction" about gentrification and efforts to prevent displacement
• Hear brief comments from Somervillians dealing with this issue
• Discuss together our ideas for Somerville.

Sponsored by the Affordable Housing Organizing Committee (AHOC) and Save our Somerville (SOS). For more information, please contact Mary Regan at 617 776-5931 x230 or mregan at somervillecdc dot org

x-posted to somervillemass 

Comments

[smoterh.livejournal.com]

Just clicked on the Movie website to find out more info. Went to the resources section, clicked on the first article and read this:

"Capitalism generates a division into classes. At the top of the social pyramid is the tiny class that owns the bulk of economic wealth. Filling their need for control over labor is another class — the techno-managerial "middle class" who manage, plan, advise. Their class position is based on monopolization of skills, education and connections rather than ownership of capital. Below them are ranged the mass of workers who are forced to work under the control of this sort of hierarchy — the working class."

Frankly sounds like the same Marxism/Lenninism bullshit that was piped into me while growing up in a communist country. If you substitute "middle class" for "bourgeoisie" and "the working class" for the "proletariat" you essentially get a quote from Marx's Manifesto. What a crock.

[ron_newman]

Is the quoted statement erroneous, though? If so, how?

[smoterh.livejournal.com]

The statement states that "class position is based on monopolization of skills, education and connections". To monopolize means "To dominate by excluding others" - which means that in a capitalist society working class cannot obtain skills, and therefore there is no movement between the classes - which is clearly false.

What's not said but perhaps implied is capitalism/class = bad, which leads one to other option which is classless society/communism - which is of course a crock because in every modern "classless" society there are 2 classes - "the party" or those in power, and those that have absolutely no power whatsoever. What Marx and every other notable writer on classless societies also fails to mention in their brilliant writings is that in EVERY country where they tried to implement classless society, if you disagree with the ruling class, you're most likely to get a visit from the secret police in the middle of the night.

[ron_newman]

capitalism/class = bad, which leads one to other option which is classless society/communism

This strikes me as a false dichotomy, since other options exist that mix varying degrees of capitalist and socialist elements. The countries of Europe demonstrate some of the possible alternatives. But now this discussion is taking us far from Somerville.

[smoterh.livejournal.com]

Despite socialist elements in European countries (we have those elements here in US too), those countries still have classes. In every European country there are rich and poor.

[ahoc-somerville.livejournal.com]

You're right that the particular quoted statement has a Marxist/Leninist flavor. I'm not sure why that writer (who, as far as I can tell, is not connected to the documentary except in that the filmmakers thought his article was relevant) included that statement in his piece, which is a fairly good explanation of the process of gentrification.

But, to respond: Classes in American society clearly are not going to disappear anytime soon, for better or for worse. Gentrification is the process by which working-class people find that they can no longer live where they once did, and that is a process that we hope to be able to do something about.