What do we value?

 

The reading "The right to the City" by David Harvey was interesting and forced me to confront my preconceived ideas about the world and history in a way that I enjoyed. I am not sure I totally agree with the full-depth of some of his ideas which are rooted in an anti-capitalist mindset. Putting that aside for a moment though there are obvious important messages in his writings in relation to the masses and their ability to have access to urban spaces, to shape their immediate surroundings, as well as to influence the macro-scale lens of urbanization. His primary grievances with the capitalist economic model are- 1.The constant accumulation of capital that is necessary for the system to survive 2.That rights to private property and profit rate are more important than other inalienable rights of the people. His call for action surrounds the introduction of considering different rights like the right to the city as well as more basic ones like the right to be treated with dignity. It is not hard to see how the historic examples of actions taken by those with money and power to change the city and therefore displace (especially without compensation) or cutoff groups of people with less influence is directly related to class struggle. 

In my experience of the world today, there are many examples where I can connect Harvey’s writings and have discussions on them. I think overall they would be more related to philosophical debates but are directly related to architecture and the built environment as they are impacted. I am not sure if there is a longer version of this reading somewhere but in the part we had, I did not see Harvey offer any ideas for a new economic model. Unless someone is able to convince me otherwise, I am very skeptical of a Marxist utopian "alternative" that, because of the nature of humans, would more than likely devolve into subjugation, oppression, and lies that are far worse than the inequality we have under capitalism. I agree with Harvey in that there needs to be a change in the structure of values specially in the US. Profit cannot be more important than basic human rights and dignity as well as human social connection and it also cannot be more important than how we treat the natural environment. If people have a stronger social connection to their families, relatives, neighbors, community, city, country, etc, they are more likely to be aware of how their business decisions or actions effect the greater good. If the masses can influence what the market values and the government is kept in check by the people, there is a possibility for more systematic shifts. In my view that is what has allowed our current system to adapt overtime and change with shifting mindsets yet stay true to its core functions.