Was reading through some general legal stuff in the Netherlands. I then checked it with a friend of mine tonight after the meeting.
In Amsterdam anyway (haven't double checked to see if it's national or regional law), a rental agreement can only be ended by the tenant.The landlord can raise the rent by 2% annually, but my source says few do. Huh?
The impact of that is still growing in my mind. Imagine - so long as one adheres to the rental agreement, one can never be evicted. That blows me away. In America, evictions now have their own industry. Check out Matthew Desmond's book on the evictions industry. I could write a long blog about it but I stepped away from homework to post this fascinating difference between America and here. The precarity of my life is my habitus, my doxa - the water in which this fish swims. I never see it until someone asks me how the water is. Retirement? Job security? A place to live? Basic health care? I, as a single and now over-50 female, with no family and at present no employment, am a free-faller, the riskiest of the risk-takers. It doesn't feel like a risk. Americans cherish freedom, right? Freedom to create our own lives, work where we want, right?
Or is this just all imagined, fed into me during my indoctrination period, so that the precarious reality of an employer-favored system will feel like a set of my own choices?
In other news, I painted my nails tonight.
