can i replace “affordable” with “free” please? these are human basic needs. just give it to me.
Norwegian here. Healthcare isn’t entirely free here, but it sure is affordable. I’m not sure if entirely free is a thing to strive for. A minor cost helps upper the bar slightly, so people don’t annoy the doctors office with stupid minor stuff (which is already happening).
Higher education is also not entirely free, just really cheap. But as long as you get a stipend (everbody that finish their study does), the state end up giving you more money than you spend. So yes, free higher education is great, I feel sorry for americans.
Affordable housing: should that be free? I agree it should be affordable though, but how can that be achieved? It’s basically the free market deciding
Legitimizing capitalism will not free us from our material conditions
While the current state of capitalism is sort of broken (doing all kinds of evil stuff in the name of shareholder profit), doesn’t make all elements of it broken.
I’m pretty happy to be able to own personal stuff for example. Like a house. Or smaller stuff, like a phone. There also needs to be some kind of mechanism actually encouraging people to contribute to society.
Personal property and private property are important distinctions. Personal property is established and maintained autonomously through social connections, while private property is maintained thru coercive systems and institutions (an invention from capitalism).
The threat of starvation and coercive violence are the main factors incentivizing people to work under capitalism.
For more - read ANARCHY WORKS by Peter Gelderloos. Chapter: Economy, “Without wages, what is the incentive to work?” (pg. 61)
Yeah, that works so well that exactly zero countries, among 8 billion people have implemented it
Hm I wonder how that’s possible… You’re really close to understanding how imperialism, colonialism and the war machine works
Capitalism isn’t broken, you’re right. The misery of 90-95% if society is expected under capitalism. It’s not a sign of capitalism being broken but for it working as intended.
There’s no such thing as a free market. It’s a myth. I’d rather believe in unicorns.
Okay, but unless healthcare workers, teachers, First Responders, construction workers, you, me, and everyone else is willing to work for free, it still has a cost, even if the government pays it. I agree that it should be a basic human right though…
EDIT:
Clarification: OP is asking for these things to be “free”. Free is if I start handing out hamburgers on the street, no strings attached. We already pay for these services, we pay the most of any country in the world, and we get worse results.
Are you… Hm… Where to start… Do you know the concept of taxes?
Taxes which… pay for all of those. Not sure why you have to jump to condescension, I’m not being obtuse. Things cost money, and we pay for it either way, that’s my only point.
But… Maybe I’m the one being obtuse here. What was your point? Even though you pay for it either way, the difference for how that works out with taxes or direct expenses is the whole point of taxes
When someone says “college is free in most of Europe”. It’s wouldn’t be a counter argument to say “well, it’s not free is it, because its paid for with taxes”. The people who would (without it being “free”), need to pay for college themselves, are not in the position to possibly cover that cost (college funds are irrelevant). But, since a skilled labour force is important and a value to society, it should be covered by everyone.
Why? What does the one thing have to do with the other? There’s always money for war, for bailing out banks, for lobbying… Thus there’s enough money for basic human needs to be met without me working for nothing. It’s a choice whom to give the money to.
But I agree to a certain point: if I don’t need to pay rent, healthcare and education, I don’t need to slave away in jobs that I don’t want.
Affordable always seems to equate to government spending
Can’t be having the government spending all our money!.
Oh? What’s that? Lockheed Martin designed a new jet? We’ll take 400 of them.
Yeah the government has a bit of a spending problem. You don’t see companies blowing though money as they don’t want to go bankrupt.
You absolutely do see companies blowing though money and going bankrupt. All the time. Companies are always failing.
True but they are no longer active companies if they go belly up.
i mean… i don’t want to sound patronizing, but please read SOMETHING. like anything at all. companies going bankrupt is literally part of the system. if someone wants to push a service or product and has enough resources, companies are set up to be bankrupt and lose money. this is how a big corporation can push competitors off the market: by selling a product under the cost of production. how often have we also seen companies going bankrupt SEVERAL times in their lifespan just to be bailed out?
In this case it is the government spending money from taxes paid by the people to improve the lives of the people who elected the government to govern the country to make it worth living in.
Yeah but the government is pretty bad about bleeding money. They also move slow and are a pain to deal with.
U.S. per-capita healthcare spending (including public and private as well as compulsory and voluntary spending) is higher than anywhere else in the world, with second-placed Germany trailing quite far behind.
On average, healthcare costs in the U.S. amounted up to $12,318 per person in 2021. In Germany that number stood at $7,383 - 40 percent lower. Yet, the U.S. lags behind other nations in several aspects such as life expectancy and health insurance coverage.
Doesn’t have to. Just need laws and stuff that say the owner of single family homes have to be single families (and not big corporations or landlords)
I think a lot of families can’t afford a home. This law would cause a huge amount of homelessness and lead to the suffering if many many people.
In my mind the prices would go down if you don’t have big hedge funds and shit to compete with.
Prices are primarily controlled by demand that is why properties in areas that are growing are very expensive.
Right. Block big landlords from buying up houses wholesale = less demand = lower price.
Instead of moving a few things around thinking it will make a lasting difference we need to move in a different direction. tbh Karl Marx really had something going on even if some of the people that read his stuff were complete assholes (cough cough Stalin).
Yeah no I don’t want to live in a Communist dystopia.
…says the guy with “Linux” in his username.
Just to be clear, Linux is not Communist. I stand for free software is designed to be sold. They key is to give everyone access to to digital hood instead of what proprietary software provides. This does not have an association with political beliefs
Thinking Free Software isn’t inherently political is like getting mad at Green Day for being suddenly ‘woke,’ LOL.
It implies the State, through the government, represents the country and deals with suppliers to achieve universal healthcare, education and housing goals.
But the State should always (must) be the primary provider for healthcare and education, although not denying private initiative but instead heavily regulating it to ensure safety and quality.
Health and Education are services, not for profit enterprises.
On the housing front, many countries own and manage large numbers of affordable housing projects and to great success. This isn’t to say the housing market doesn’t require an heavy regulatory, as it does.
