>How it works I understand is this: When the state/city decides to plan for
>a shopping centre in a new location, it puts this leasehold up for auction.
>If the capitalist market thinks the prospects of making surplus value in
>that particular location are especially favourable, they have to pay a
>higher price, which goes to the state, rather than in large parts of
>London, to the Duke of Devonshire, or some other beneficiary of landed
>aristocracy. There may be real estate moguls in Hong Kong but they are not
>clipping coupons merely because they own the land. In that sense the
>landowning class is small to non-existent.
That's correct, and I believe it's what also happened in other colonies. The English landed aristocracy, I think, got that "first-level delegation of ownership" (so to speak) from the Crown in feudal times; but the British Empire was largely established after the 17th century.
>I have written previously under this thread about the advantages of the
>state having a significant supply of income, and how in economic downturns
>it may use its reserves to spend, as Hong Kong is doing now, on a massive
>building programme relative to its GDP. The fact that the building
>programme is not for houses for the most exploited of the working class
>seems to be true, but is another point. This is a capitalist system.
Anyway, let's not forget that about half of the population (and not the wealthiest, of course) lives in public housing. The Housing Authority (http://www.info.gov.hk/hd/eng/site/index.htm) started its life in 1973, and is now probably the largest developer and landlord in the world.
Also, about 40% of the population is totally out of the tax net (and there is no GST or VAT either) so the poor are not getting a bad deal after all.
Enzo