THE SALE OF PUBLIC RENTAL HOUSING - BRITISH AND HONG-KONG EXPERIENCES

Social services are often regarded as a double-edged sword for capital ism. On the one hand, they could promote capital accumulation and poli tical legitimacy in capitalist societies. On the other hand, they coul d create adverse effects on the commodity relationship. In response to this contradictory relation between social services and capitalism, c apitalist governments often attempt to take up ''doubletasks'', that i s alongside providing social services to enhance capital accumulation and political legitimacy, they try to reduce the decommodifying effect s of social services. Since the 1980s both the British and Hong Kong g overnments have attempted to intensify sales of public housing with th e aims of promoting home ownership and the commodity relationship. The purposes of this article are to examine how these sale programmes are related to the promotion of the commodity relationship and to analyse why they have achieved different results.