ABSTRACT
This chapter explains two different views on government involvement in housing. True enough, tenure conversions may be paralleled by changes in governmental housing policies which imply a more rigorous application of means tests as the method of determining eligibility to assure that ‘direct’ support goes to those ‘who really need’ it. Many aspects of social welfare are seen as within the realm of governmental intervention, and the groups of recipients are broadly defined. The means-regarding equal opportunity provided by such a programme as the Right to Buy is typical of marginalist programmes. Means-regarding equal opportunity is perfectly consistent with the logical of market societies. The problem is that the ‘supplementary-comprehensive’ dichotomy has come to be politically loaded. A promising way of comparing national housing policies would be to look for the principles which guide decisions of how to subdivide groups that should or should not be given support.
