Call me a “libertarian socialist”, I suppose, but I think workers’ collectives and housing co-ops are a much more sustainable and democratic alternative to unionization and housing projects. Unions and projects are flawed but acceptable in the interim, but they are only a temporary solution for the general problem of massive inequities in our society.

Is it not better to reform means of ownership in society rather than assume that everyone can and should live like the rich? The “ownership society” as envisioned by the Bush administration (among others) is a fundamentally middle-class one, in which every family is atomized into its own little house on its own plot of land. This wastes enormous quantities of resources. Apartment buildings, too, are no better: despite a greater population density afforded by them, they are even worse culprits for inhuman individuation. They destroy the social fabric of communities as surely as drugs and poverty, emphasizing an “I got mine” attitude.