Date of Award
12-16-2019
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Sociology
First Advisor
Daniel Pasciuti
Second Advisor
Amy Spring
Third Advisor
Deirdre Oakley
Abstract
It is often taken for granted that home ownership provides an opportunity for economic mobility and that promoting ownership helps to reduce wealth inequality. These hegemonic assumptions are apparent in the narrative of the American Dream which says that home ownership is a means to spiritual and material enrichment. A pervasive narrative that connects private property to freedom and opportunity and rests on the implicit belief in American exceptionalism. This study counters this fictive by using data from the last major housing crisis. I analyze patterns of housing values to assess whether home ownership is a leveling factor or if it serves to reinforce racial and geographic inequality and contributes to the understanding of how the accumulation of housing-based wealth is contingent on who the owner is and the context of where the property is located. I argue that homeownership intensifies inequality; it does not reduce it. Finally, I consider the role of crises in both maintaining and restructuring capitalism to increase profitability through the creation of new markets.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.57709/15909803
Recommended Citation
Noakes, Christian, "Waking Up from the American Dream: A Marxist Critique of Homeownership and the Accumulation of Capital." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2019.
doi: https://doi.org/10.57709/15909803
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