Housing and inequality under state socialism: An analysis of Yugoslavia

Abstract

This paper argues that communist party‐dominated societies remain inegalitarian. Among the reasons for this are the inadequacies of Marxist theory with respect to the bases of social stratification, and the consequent reliance by communist parties on the simple abolition of private property rights over the means of production to create egalitarian societies — which they have failed to do. It is argued that Weber's concept of power, and his description of social stratification based on the multiple phenomena of social class, status groups and parties, offers an explanation of this failure. In particular, it is argued that status groups and the party itself continue to form the bases of inegalitarian forms of social stratification. The distribution of housing rights and tenures in Yugoslavia is used as an empirical example to illustrate these theoretical arguments. It is shown that social housing is allocated disproportionately to elites among politicians, government officials and the managers of enterprises. The majority of workers are ‘forced’ into self‐build home ownership. Many of the less skilled workers together with immigrants are to be found living in the relatively high‐cost private rented sector. These patterns represent a relatively inegalitarian distribution of housing rights and accommodation.