opinion

It is a simple dream and desire of all people to live harmoniously with their own families at their own home. 

But in the Western world, such a dream is too far from reality that many people wander about to find living places. 

An August issue of American newspaper The Wall Street Journal said about Americans’ dream as follows:

Americans crave three things even in dreams, that is, a private home, family and stable life. However, it is nothing but a pipe dream. And few Americans believe that the dream will come true easily.

In fact, house prices in the US are too high for ordinary families to even think of getting a single-room house of their own. The rent is so high that many people are leading a vagrant life.

Last year alone, the number of such homeless people reached more than 650 000, a record high in 16 years.

In Japan the average price of each flat of a new apartment house built in the capital area last year rose by 9.5 percent over the previous year, renewing the top record for three consecutive years.

The average price of houses in central Tokyo is said to have exceeded ¥100 million. This is why it is difficult for ordinary citizens to even imagine living in their own home. 

In the Netherlands house prices continuously rose, setting a new record in the second quarter of this year, and in Sydney, Australia, the average monthly tax per flat reached over US$1 700.

In New Zealand, 1 million people consider it the only option to live in rented houses by abandoning their dream to live in their own homes.

That’s why many homeless people live a vagabond life on side streets and their number is increasing day by day in the Western world.

What is the reason why the Western countries styling themselves “advanced nations” are becoming “heaven” of tramps?

The Western media commented that the global economic crisis has worsened due to the prevalence of the malignant epidemic, aggravating the people’s living conditions. But this is nothing but deceptive propaganda to cover up the anti-popular nature of capitalist society.

In the US alone, the property of about 650 billionaires increased by more than US$1 trillion in 2020, when the malignant epidemic crisis reached the extreme. In 2021, the sum of property owned by the top wealthy classes accounting for 1 percent of the population surpassed that of all the middle classes.

An American economist said that in 2023 the rich grew richer and the people who were struggling in the lowest stratum of society suffered from deep-rooted poverty, adding its root cause is the institutional structure which exploits the poor, provides the rich with subsidies and separates the social strata.

While a handful of billionaires build luxury houses here and there and spend a huge sum of money for a day's meals alone, the number of vagrants, who have been driven out of even rented houses because they have no money, is increasing steadily. This just reflects the falsehood of and wretchedness under the capitalist system which advocates “equality for all” and “public welfare”.

It is a serious lesson taught by the present world that the simple desire of working people to have their own houses can never come true but for a social system that truly serves the people.