people really out here thinking houses maintain themselveshttps://twitter.com/Alysonesque/status/1005989848577073152 …
A tiny fraction of inhabited streets actually have streetlamps; emergency services are a situation where we rarely actually need them, but need them to be in excellent working order when we DO need them. I argue medical care falls into same category--but not housing or food...
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...because housing and food we need *all the time,* and we can handle a wide range in quality, price, and selection, according to our taste and means. For people who struggle with these "all the time" expenses, we DO allocate public funding--but we could do a better job of it.
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This isn’t really the important question. What matters is whether or not we should *aspire* to providing these things, or if we want our society to be one in which it’s possible to be homeless or to starve.
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every society *starts* as one in which it's possible to be homeless or starve and so far I'm not aware of many which have entirely escaped that situation--maybe they just didn't aspire hard enough though
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That’s not quite what I’m talking about. I apologize if this is derailing the convo, but again, the fact that a problem hasn’t been solved yet isn’t really relevant to whether or not you want to do it.
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right--but the fact that people really want to solve a problem isn't always relevant to the problem actually being soluble
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...and where intractable problems are concerned, it can get really frustrating to keep hearing "maybe you just don't want the solution enough"
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To be clear I am NOT trying to say this. That would be terrible.
End of conversation
New conversation -
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In an ideal world, we wouldn’t have to pay for food or shelter, but that would probably involve doing away with capitalism altogether as capitalism functions by exploiting our basic needs...it doesn’t have to be this way........
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no, food and shelter don't manifest themselves out of thin air--securing them means TIME and effort, which means cost! the costs are much more manageable when every person isn't responsible for building their own house and growing their own food, so we trade, etc etc
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I’m well aware that these things take time and labor, but the point is that under another economic system we wouldn’t have to exchange *money* for these things to begin with. Nothing about our contemporary capitalist system is natural or inevitable
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not necessarily money, but some kind of voucher which corresponds to time spent, work done, goods provided, etc--but which also accounts for the changing value of work and goods depending on context. So...money.
End of conversation
New conversation -
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some of us do need medical care all the time. and any public health expert will tell you that our housing and food supply is hardly in excellent working order
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