Wealth, Capital, and Power: The Social Meaning of Home Ownership

The failure of advanced capitalism to eradicate the problem of poverty in an environment of affluence no doubt has helped to stimulate this latest surge of interest in distributional issues. Of the historical research done in this area, one of the most notable studies is that of Kulikoff.1 His purpose was to explore the contradiction between growing imbalances of income and wealth and the ideology of egalitarianism in Boston from 1771 to 1790. It is the purpose of the present discussion to duplicate Kulikoffs study for a later period, 1890 to 1910 and, in addition, to deal with two commonly ignored assumptions underlying studies of inequality: (1) that the spread of home ownership means that more and more of the population is becoming enfranchised, and (2) that homes represent capital, a partnership in the affluent society. This discussion starts with the concept of inequality itself. When one speaks of inequality, one is speaking of differences in the amount ofsocialpower that may be brought to bear by different individuals or groups. Social power includes economic power, political power, and the power to command status. In capitalist society, social power is the result of the ownership and control of capital; inequality, then, is simply the phenomenon of differential ownership and control of capital.2 In this view of inequality in capitalist society, it is obvious that the definition of what constitutes capital is absolutely crucial. This issue will be discussed in detail in section III. The occupa-