be a devil WTltC to us for a free copy of one of our illustrated monthly magazines on the arts. They are absolutely devoted to books, ballet, cinema, theatre, classical music, and records BOOKS AND BOOKMEN • DANCE AND DANCERS FILMS AND FILMING • PLAYS AND PLAYERS MUSIC AND MUSICIANS • RECORDS AND RECORDING * * ' SWl HANSOM BOOKS 7 & 8 HOBART PLACE EATON SQUARE LONDON Gome to the Anarchist Ball Friday January 25th 1963 at Fulham Town Hall Music by Mick Mulligan and his Band with George Melly Guest artists will include Sidney Carter, Bob Davenport, Red Nerk, Redd Sullivan and Wally Whyton Tickets six shillings from Freedom Press or from Dobell's Jazz Record Shop — ANARCHY 23 (VOL 3 NO I) JANUARY 1963 r In the second half of the twentieth century we have reduced able- bodied fully employed people Contents of No. 23 January 1963 to homelessness; we never managed this before we decided that housing should be regarded as a social service In the second half the of twentieth century a man made nearly £3 million in seven profit year* from an investment in land of £35,000; no one did quite so well as this Housing and helplessness John Ellerby 1 before we adopted planning powers. In the second half of the Do it yourself Ian Nairn 4 twentieth century the man who gets the greatest State aid with his housing Miners who run their own pit Douglas Stuckey 7 is the owner-occupier millionaire; this was not so m the days privilege, Direct action for houses: the story of the squatters 9 of before we promulgated the Welfare State. Market research can now predict We built our own Harry Deverson 16 ^ the demand for new products withm a jew ( r What hope for housing societies? Tristram Shandy 17 p cent; and we have a slum-clearance programme based on figures that show Welwyn Garden Bethnal Green : a museum of housing Colin Ward 21 City with the same proportion of unfit house* us Stoke A man's ambition must be small Jack Robinson 25 Newington, Cheltenham with the same proportion as Swindon, ars'/ialton John Rae and the myths of war Arthur Uloth 28 ( with the same proportion as St. Pancras. The first serious effort to see Cover by Rufus Segar that the most money goes to the areas in the greatest need has been taken in the 1961 Housing Act; and the Act works in such a way that Bournemouth qualifies for a higher subsidy ttum Liverpool. The Government has deliberately reduced the building Other issues of Universities of council houses in ANARCHY and Colleges the belief that, except in special cases, private enterprise 1. Sex-and-Violence; Galbraith; ANARCHY can be obtained in term- can do the fob better; and virtually no private housing6 is the New Wave, Education, time from : being huiit far rent. 2. Workers* Control. Oxford : Martin Small, 3. What does anarchism mean today?; Trinity College. Africa; the Long Revolution; Cambridge : Nicholas Bohm, Housing and 4. De-institutionalisation; Conflicting St. John's College. helplessness I'll : DEVASTATING strains in anarchism, Durham Malcolm Scott, WORDS AT THE HEAD OF THIS PAGE are the Opening Grey 5. 1936: the Spanish Revolution. College. paragraphs of Mr. Alderson's new Penguin book Leicester: on housing. The 6. Anarchy and the Cinema. Political Science Bookstall subject has so many aspects that we could easily devote an Issue of 7. Adventure Playgrounds. Anarchy lo each ol them: the plight of the homeless in 8. Correction—Mutual Aid London—living Anarchists and Fabians; Action ( in iho I ( s reception ' centres in conditions ON Anthropology; Eroding Capitalism; In Anarchy 20 we referred to Kro- which are deliberately potkin's degraded in case others 1 9. Prison. Mutual Aid as "long out of should be tempted to join them: the workings print". So it is in Britain, but the of the Rem Act, and the 10. Sillitoe's Key to the Door; way in which houses which used to be let American edition of 1955 is available Maclnnes on Crime; Augustus at working-class rents are now being sold at middle-class at three dollars (hard-bound) and two freehold prices- John's Utopia; Committee of 100 land speculation and the dollars (paperback) from Libertarian boom in office-building and in speculative 11. Paul Goodman; Neill on Education; League, P.O. housing lor side together with the Character-Builders, Box 261, Cooper decline in building for rent by local Station, New York 3, N.Y. authorities; the \;uvc o are the anarchists? of slum-clearance and the absurd promises made t by a succession oi Housing 2 Action, Ministers; the fact that a quarter of a obedience. million people in this country now live in caravans; the technical work of David Wills backwardness ol the house-building industry; 3 lies of anarchism; Africa; the lowering of housing Subscribe to standards since ihe hopeful >ology; Poetry of Dissent, ANARCHY post-war years, to the extent that a govern- Single copies by post Is. 9d. (30c.) ment committee a lumpenproletariat: declared last year that the ordinary house built 12 issues 20s. today >n vs. the working class; ($3). by local authority ov speculative and to developer is obsolete before it is dry.* of access; Benevolent FREEDOM the anarchist But the aspect of the housing question which [racy; CD and CND. weekly, which readers of we want to stress is the absence of choice, initiative '"tensive Schools. ANARCHY will find indispensable. A and freedom, which the ordinary family year's subscription to both journals have in the anger and anarchy. is most elementary and universal human task of finding offered at 32s. ($5). jn-vio!ence as a reading of somewhere to live. The number of houses Cheques, POs and Money Orders rented privately is steadily story; Freud, anarchism and diminishing, should be and virtually no new housebuilding is >eriments in living. made out to for rent. Thus, apart from the horrors ;ondary modem FREEDOM PRESS of furnished rooms and subletting, there are virtually 17a Maxwell Road London only Lnston's Dialogue on anarchy. SW6 England two possible ways In which the British family can gain Tel: RENown 3736 possession or a house or flat: the breadwinner can become an owner-occupier if he has the kind of job and income which will enable him to borrow local gains, safer road crossings, local amenities, housing improvements, money on mortgage from a building society, or if they are lucky and won by what we should now call civil disobedience demonstrations." have the appropriate disabilities, and have been on the Council's list for Can the techniques of civil disobedience and direct action enforce some ages, they can become local authority tenants. changies in social priorities in housing? The Economic We can only find out by Council for Europe's analysis European Housing trying them. Trends and Policies in 1960 showed that houses completed in the The article on the squatters contains a little anarchist fable which United Kingdom in that year could be classified thus: Municipal is worth thinking about. In citing a contemporary account of the housing 42.2%, Private unaided building (mostly for owner-occupation) difference, six months Ialer, between the "unofficial" squatters, the 56.3%, Other (i.e., Housing Associations) 1.5%. people who had the initiative to seize an army camp, and the "official" Here are some comparable figures for other countries. Sweden: ones, their neighbours who were moved in by the local authority after State and local authorities 31.1%, Co-operatives 29.5%, Owner- the seizure of the camp had been officially recognised, it mentions that occupiers 22.2%, Other private development 17.2%. West Germany: only the unofficial squatters "had set to work with a will, improvising Public authorities 2.4%, Housing associations and co-operatives 26.1%, partitions, running up curtains, distempering, painting Private and using individuals 63.9%, Private housing companies 4.1%, Other initiative." 3.5%. Czechoslovakia: State 58.6%, Co-operatives 11.6%, Enterprises This brings us to a point which we raised in Anarchy 4: "One 6.4%, Private persons, aided 6.5%, Private persons, unaided 17.0%. quarter of the population of England and Wales live Lewis in the three-and- Waddilove, in his recent PEP report, points out that a a-quarter million dwellings owned by local authorities. But is there range of choice as limited as that in Britain is found only in Greece, one municipal housing estate in this country in which the tenants have Ireland, Portugal and Roumania. The advantages of housing asso- any control over and any responsibility for the administration ciations of their or co-operatives, which at present provide an infinitesimal estate, their physical environment?" The point we were trying to proportion of housing in this country are so obvious compared with the make has since been made explicit in Mr. Waddilove's PEP Report on two available alternatives, that we thought it essential, in attempting to Housing Associations. Citing the experience of Norway, he says: look at housing from an anarchist point of view, to include an account "A pre-war municipal estate near Oslo was transferred of them. over a period from the ownership of the local authority to the ownership But what is an anarchist point of view? Anarchists ane> by of associations of the tenants themselves. It had been one of the definition, most opponents of the principle of authority, and as a consequence difficult problems to the local authority; its standards were low, its espouse that of autonomy and free association. If we are powerless appearance unpleasant, and there was great resistance to increase's in over housing it is because w/e have surrendered our power over every- rents to a reasonable level.