Should it be our right to have our basic needs met?
Hi! I'm GreenPhilosophy and this is my first topic here.
Is it right to charge people for products that are necessary to satisfy their basic needs (food, shelter, etc.), or should it be people’s right to receive what they need to survive from society? In this imaginary scenario, any product that isn't necessary to live would still cost money. Only products that satisfy people's basic needs would be free. I think it's wrong to feed someone ONLY if they are talented, like in professional sports or something else that's purely for our entertainment. I think food, water, clothes, and shelter should be everyone's right and society's priority, but what are your thoughts on this topic?
Is it right to charge people for products that are necessary to satisfy their basic needs (food, shelter, etc.), or should it be people’s right to receive what they need to survive from society? In this imaginary scenario, any product that isn't necessary to live would still cost money. Only products that satisfy people's basic needs would be free. I think it's wrong to feed someone ONLY if they are talented, like in professional sports or something else that's purely for our entertainment. I think food, water, clothes, and shelter should be everyone's right and society's priority, but what are your thoughts on this topic?
Comments (34)
Having said that, no economic system is going to just give away the necessities of life - under socialism, everyone might receive the basic necessities without handing over cash, but (most) people will still have to pay for them by engaging in socially necessary labour to produce them.
In practice most people receive the minimum necessities of life, but it isn't quite a "right", nor is the provision of basic necessities undertaken by the state itself, in many cases. Food, clothing, and shelter are usually provided by someone. There are, however people who live without shelter. They live outside on the street. If it is too cold they will freeze to death; if it is too hot they will die of heat stroke. They can also die of dehydration and starvation. Disease, of course may be fatal.
Some countries do a good job of providing the basic necessities, even exceeding the basics. At least so I have heard.
In a number of countries it is quite possible to die from lack of food or water, (adequate) clothing and shelter. In many countries people needing essential medical care find insurmountable barriers between themselves and an adequate hospital. In many countries people die from preventable disease (preventable by vaccination or medication).
You are aware that receiving the basic requirements of life (enough food, shelter, water, protection from the elements, minimal health care, etc. so that one does not die in the street or in a shelter) is a miserable and precarious existence.
True, but capitalist systems regularly produce a surplus from which the poorest can be taken care of, if the society sees fit to provide such care.
There are millions of "excess deaths" from lack of food, clean water, shelter, and medical care. (Excess deaths are above and beyond those that occur from old age, for instance, and long established stats for baseline mortality from childbirth, childhood diseases, and accidents.)
This holds true on both sides of the political spectrum. Capitalistic versus socialistic, they both use the monetary system as a base foundation. The false assumption that money is a natural problem solver.
Another scenario could be that we added basic necessities to the human rights. And thereby force governments around the world to feed the starving part of their demographic, while providing shelters and medicine etc through taxes. Just like we do in my country (Denmark). We pay some of the highest tax rates, this is done deliberately and with military precision. Because we know that society is best when all people thrive and are happy. People that is unable to find work or get sick, gets offered an apartment, and a subtle amount of money to live off every month. If the rest of the world could just get this simple idea into their heads, the world would most definitely be a much better place.
1) Who's going to produce the necessities and why? (farming & food storage, house building & design, water harvesting & storage, medical care, making clothes, etc.)
- My solution is to engineer ways to reduce labor. For example, houses can be built with 3D printers now, reducing the construction costs from $200,000 to $10,000. It normally takes 7 months to construct a house, but it takes less than 24 hours with a 3D printer. Here's a link to the 3D printed house (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUdnrtnjT5Q) All basic necessities should be easier to produce.
2) Capitalism relies heavily on the sales of necessities, so making necessities free could damage the economy.
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It isn't just the "sale" of necessities; capitalism is all about making a profit on all of those necessities that people... need. Eliminating profit from capitalism wouldn't just "damage" the capitalist economy, it would destroy it. That's OK by me, but be aware -- replacing one economic system for a completely different type of economy is very difficult (because the profit makers in the old economy usually don't want to just give up making money.)
So, I watched the video on the concrete house. Quite interesting. These can be built on site where the house is wanted, right? And I suppose they fill the gap between the inner layer and outer layer with some kind of binding insulation to retain heat (or resist heat from outside) and strengthen the walls.
Instant houses can also be made by inflating a heavy balloon, anchoring it, and then spraying foam on it, followed by a layer of concrete stucco. After the stucco has hardened, openings for windows and doors can be cut into the structure.
There is an additional problem, and it's a big one. However unequal the distribution of wealth may be, and however unfair the uneven distribution of wealth may be, there are too many people in the world to provide everyone with a nice house, decent clothing, adequate food, good medical care, and so forth. Why not?
There are not enough resources available to do that for the current 7.3 billion - expected to be 9 billion before 2050. It isn't just that there isn't enough money -- there is not enough raw material, energy, unused good crop land, clean water, sewage treatment systems, hospitals, etc. to do it.
Not to throw too much ice water on your good intentions, but by the time your humane plan was put into effect (let's say it took 80 years), the world will be in very dire straits from global warming. Many coastal cities will have been ruined (that's where most people live -- along the coasts), crop production will be severely diminished, it will be too hot in much of the world to work outside all day, the weather will be far more erratic than it is now, there will not be enough petroleum left to power all this equipment, provide raw feed stock material, and power factories and farms. Fresh water will be in short supply and god only knows what old and new diseases we'll be dealing with.
In a nutshell, by the end of this century, we are going to be totally screwed.
Your heart is in the right place, but the times are going to be very, very cruel.
Is there a way around the global warming problem? Maybe. If we all stopped flying, stopped driving cars, reduced heating and lighting to a minimum, stop making, using, and disposing of any unnecessary material of any kind, all become vegans, learned to live without air conditioning and 72 degree heat in winter, and so on, we might be able to prevent the worst of the disaster. Everyone not driving, not flying, and becoming vegan is about as likely as the Blessed Virgin Mary showing up tomorrow morning to serve you breakfast in bed.
I don't think that's quite true. And, honestly, if stopping 9 million people die for lack of food and adequate nutrition every year means I have to give up my luxuries, I guess that's just something we have to do. But it's not the case. There are countless ways we could end world hunger and each starts with at the very least strongly curtailing capitalism. 9 million dead people in the world each year, but the US alone just throws away a third of its food... capitalism is disgustingly wasteful.
The biggest challenge would involve changing people's mindsets. The two most important ways:
1) Having people realize that they must work as part of society, not for a direct monetary gain, but so that the whole system can work. People would have to see labor as a part of the greater good for themselves and everyone else as well. Ultimately it would make people happier, as studies have shown that people are more satisfied with work they do for the intrinsic value over an external reward, but it will be hard to get people to that point.
2) Getting people to accept that everyone deserves these bare necessities, regardless of education or career choice. A lot of people still think a CEO deserves a lot more than a bus driver... but if you look at the difference between their salaries in capitalist America, it doesn't make sense. There are only so many hours in a week, so much labor any person can put into a job (unless they have a time turner), so 373 times as much money for the average CEO is just preposterous.
In any case, yes, I interpret the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" as including the basic necessities of life.
It's expensive to be poor in America.
https://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21663262-why-low-income-americans-often-have-pay-more-its-expensive-be-poor
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/01/25/why-it-costs-so-much-to-be-poor-in-america/?noredirect=on
https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/the-high-price-of-being-poor/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-high-cost-of-being-poor/
All true. People work long hours because that is part of the business plan of the capitalist-- we work extra time to produce their profit. If we were not working for profit, or to perpetuate markets (like the market for SUVs, jumbo Airbus and Boeing passenger planes, etc.) then we all wouldn't have to work nearly as long.
CEOs get paid way too much is a truism -- like the sky is blue. The rich are a parasite class.
Yes! The whole system is rigged against the working class.
Which is one of the main points of the articles I linked to :)
For a more literary version of what capitalism is like for poor people trying to get just a little bit ahead, see The Jungle by Upton Sinclair.
According to Sugrue's The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit, a key reason was that Ford and General Motors wanted to diversify geographically, relocate in rural areas of the midwest and south, and automate. They wanted to do all this largely as a bitter reaction to organized labor's successes before and during WWII. The unions (like the UAW) became cocky and intrusive in management issues, and the execs found this emotionally and economically intolerable.
So they moved many of their operations, taking with them hundreds of allied businesses (like spark plug plants, crankshaft grinders, ball bearing plants, etc.) and many, many jobs. Workers with seniority, good skills, and personal mobility moved, the rest were just screwed, left high and dry, The tax base started to wither away, social needs snowballed, the gap between municipal spending and income widened, and by the 1970s, Detroit was going down the drain.
Before I started reading about MoTown, I thought all this started in the 70s or 80s. But the destruction of Detroit started in the late 50s. GM and Ford didn't give a rat's ass about the destruction they caused by seeking to weaken the leverage of organized labor.
I think the issue is that whilst society is mired in capitalism, seeing fit to disperse the surplus freely is not a coherent option. Under capitalism the surplus is the source of profit. Disperse the surplus freely: no profit. No profit: no capitalism.
Orwell was an exceptional writer and human being. Another work in the same spirit by another writer (although this time fictional) is The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell.
The problem, of course, is that this sort of good generosity is a short-term fix that does nothing to change the structural problems that produce foodless, shoeless, and homeless people in the first place.
I mentioned above this book by Sugrue about Detroit. Detroit is pretty much a hopeless case at this point, but the thing that really made me sit up and take notice was Sugrue's description of how early and how fast the events that destroyed Detroit took place. "Peak Detroit" was in 1950, and 10 years later Detroit was well on its way to immiseration.
It isn't the case that nobody noticed what was happening. Economists working for the United Auto Workers Union in the early '50s recognized structural changes early on that pointed toward Detroit getting the royal shaft. Detroit's Wayne State University demographers analyzed data from the 1950s and in 1962 concluded that Detroit was doomed. The early estimations of disaster turned out to be spot on.
The problem with charity is that places like Detroit or the south side of Chicago or parts of England or Paris or thousands of places elsewhere in the world are beyond being helped by charitable donations of personal surplus. IF there is any solution that can or will happen (or won't), it would involve extensive structural changes, and then were talking about revolution.
The major change we've had that contributed to this rise in poverty, was a law that forced people on welfare into an ultimatum to either find a job or get an education (education is provided by the government). So if you couldn't find a job which most people on welfare for good reasons can't, or couldn't begin an education because of mental health issues, social problems or drug abuse. All these people that could not meet the terms within this ultimatum, was denied their welfare checks and thrown onto the streets. Roughly 55.000 people. I'm one of them. Although i've been lucky to be in the right place where good social workers has helped me to get the basic necessities. It's brutal times to be in the system these days, i've grown up with both my parents who was also on welfare, so i struggle with my social heritage.
I'm not going to make this a political talk, but to throw people on the streets and into poverty in the name of individualism, is in my opinion disgusting. The liberals that put this into effect, are a menace to society and their own people.
Do i think that it should be a fundamental right to have our basic needs met? Yes i do! As nature originally intended.
Just to clarify, is your "liberal" basically what we in America call "libertarian"? Here "liberals" are the ones in favor of social programs and helping out people.
Nature intended for our basic needs to be met? Nonsense. 1) nature has no intentions 2) nature seems to be content that animals starve, freeze, don't find mates, etc. 3) our survival has never been guaranteed by nature or anyone/anything else.
In a civilized society, things may be sort of complex, but most look after their citizens.
Actually, this might be a good measure of how well-developed such societies are.
I don't think you can demand that another individual provides for you as such.
(Surely you don't "blame" nature for suffering? The universe is largely indifferent to our troubles.)
Hey @jm0, a fellow Dane, who knew. :)
I didn't say that.
Let me explain.
All living organisms get the food that they have the ability to get. Otherwise they wouldn't be living organisms right? That's what living organisms do. So in this manner, nature has provided us with the ability to extract what we need from the natural environment to survive and thrive ie. basic necessities. No guarantees, just the ability to obtain them. The problems begin to arise whenever we enter the realm of human civilisation, where nobody has equal access and odds of obtaining these sought after necessities. That's what we are discussing. Or at least, that's my point of view.
So yes i believe that if nature had intentions, it would originally had intended for our species to have equal access to basic necessities.
@jorndoe Hello there :D Not only a small country, but a small world as well.
Oh, oh... now there's a Danish faction to contend with.
Quoting jm0
Squirrels don't have equal access to all of the acorns. Some squirrels are bigger, smarter, and more aggressive than others. If the top gestapo squirrels happen to control the tree, the unfortunate Slavic squirrels will just have to do without. (Gray squirrels imported from North America are the conquering Prussians in comparison to the peaceable European ginger squirrels.)
North American grey squirrels stalk humans carrying paper bags. They can tell the difference between merchandise bags and food bags. Squirrels on university campuses, for instance observe, assess, follow, and then aggressively confront likely food bearers. "Hand it over or I'll just climb up your pant legs to take it away from you." and then proceed to leap.
If the early birds get all the worms, the late risers will just have to go on worm-free diets.
How is that different from human civilization? (Well, one way it is different -- unpleasantly different -- is that it is no longer birds and squirrels, but us minor divinities that have to put up with nature's arrangements for distributing what there is.
The difference between us and the squirrels is that the squirrels can just find another tree to get their acorns from, we can't just find another planet to get our food source from. We only have this planet, this civilisation. Either you are a part of it, or either you are a part of it.
Funny story of the university squirrels.
Now, what does humans do when they can't get food on the table by conventional means like getting a job for example. Compromise on their morality and rob a bank, or starve themselves to death with their morality and integrity still intact? Both things happen, i guess. Humans living under these low conditions have the potential to suddenly begin to start acting like the university squirrels. Looking in trash cans for alternative food sources, because we as a civilisation fail to ensure that everybody gets fed. This is why it is of utmost importance that we do our best to meet the basic needs of our people, it helps bring peace to the world.
A quote from a former Danish politician:
[quote=Arne Melchior]For two reasons, there will never be a revolution in Denmark. First and foremost, it's too much rain and you can not revolutionize under an omitted umbrella. Second, every turn to revolution must be over before dinner, because the Dane will not miss his hot dinner[/quote]
Another way of saying that whenever the basic needs are met, and the people have food on the table. There is no need for war, destruction, or revolution. I just thought that would fit well with the talk we're having here :D
True, and another part of our problem is that we can't seem to tell the difference between being "advanced" and just consuming (literally and figuratively) a hellishly huge amount of 'stuff'. Houses (in the US, at least) built before 1920 had very few closets. Why? Well, one reason was that most people didn't have a lot of clothes. A small cabinet of drawers and a small closet would be sufficient. People didn't used to have refrigerators, so they bought food much more frequently, prepared it right away. Most people did not have a car, and most people used public transit. (Even in the days of horse and buggy, a lot of people didn't have horses because they were expensive to keep; there were, naturally horses for rent. Or you walked, took a train, or borrow a ride.)
People used to have pianos, banjos, mandolins, violins, and horns. If you wanted to hear music, you played it or listened to someone else play it--always live and in person. No radio, TV, fiber optic, modem, router, speakers, amps, receivers, iPods, iPads, Macs, PCs, game consoles, etc. If you wanted to write, you took pen in hand and wrote on paper.
The air was dirtier back then because people burned wood or coal for heat, and oil for light (before electric light). When I was a young boy, the snow in the winter would become gray from coal smoke, and this was in a very small town.
Maybe some of the late 19th century inventions actually advanced us. Bicycles. Electric light. Telephone. Recorded sound may have been an advance; it's less obvious that broadcast sound was an advance. Just like switching from vinyl to cd to mp3 to streaming doesn't represent an advance. It just marks different ways of selling culture.
IF we were to go back to the late 19th century, we would still be civilized, but would be consuming far less of the stuff that nature provided.
By 1900 public sanitation, nitrogen fertilizer production, germ theory, some vaccines, and so on were in place, or could be. Going back to 1900 would not be going back to the dark ages. Yes, one would have to learn how to read music and play it -- but all sorts of people did that. Yes, one would have to read the newspaper to find out what was going on. (Emerson thought that once a month for reading the news was sufficient.) Yes, one would have to use a train, a bicycle, a street car, or walk. Yes, one would have maybe two pairs of leather shoes, one set of work clothes, one set of going-to-church clothes, and a few pair of underwear. One would be smellier than one is supposed to be now. No one ever died of body odor.
Yes, life would be harder -- but then, one wouldn't have to go to the gym every day to avoid being a blob of muscle-less protoplasm.
That is the major downside to capitalism and the monetary system in general. To get food on the table you have a lot of opportunities, but in the end you have to sell something or work for someone who is selling some things. That way a lot of unnecessary stuff gets produced and consumed.
Welcome to earth, the biggest consumer planet in the universe. Even our whales are filled with micro plastic from all of our garbage. I'm sorry, i don't want to paint a big and horrible picture here. But it's kind of depressing. Relax, think positively! This is our fuck-up planet, so we learn how to take care of our next one if we get there ;)
Another point i would like to make, is that modernism falsely assumes that everything that is old are not worth bringing into the new world, because it's not modern. Only new things are modern. And if we're all trying to be modern, and live the modern life, then we are automatically sorting out everything from the old world, just because. Like the point you were trying to make, that maybe we can learn a lot of good things from "the old world". I'm not saying modernism is all bad, just trying to point out that maybe it's not always so good after all. And to be all-modern and completely stripped of everything from our cultural past, is just boring as heck, sad even. We have a huge cultural heritage, we need to embrace that IMO.