Comment by ilovetux
14 days ago
> Finally, who drives garbage trucks, picks food in hot fields, delivers goods by driving all night, etc when they have all of their basic needs met for free?
The idea that we need to ensure that a large enough group is struggling enough to work unsavory jobs is a predatory mindset.
If less people want to work a certain job for any reason, that means that the demand is greater than the supply. In that scenario, the traditional way to get people to work those jobs is to offer more money or other compensation.
Just because people have some food, clothing and shelter does not mean that they won't want better food, better clothing or better shelter.
So, basic needs are just food clothing and shelter? Mental and physical healthcare is off the table in this scenario? Does the quality of the shelter come into play here? Do people get AC and guaranteed 68 degree temperatures and hot days?
You’ve missed an entire half of the question.
I would love to live in the Star Trek Utopia but you have only attacked my questions as predatory without addressing the whole foundation that is being proposed for this society. People will always be people and there will always be a need for someone to do an undesirable job. When all other jobs are out-competed for, that still leaves someone to either do the undesirable job or just accept basic minimums. The undesirable jobs might change, but the inequality will still be there.
This is a reasonably bad faith take of their response. Their “predatory” assertion was with regards to saying “who’s going to pick up garbage” as if we have to keep making that a low paying job for the bottom rung of society, not “where do we draw the line between essential and necessity”. The point is to make undesirable jobs actually well compensated for their desirableness rather than here is a job, take it or leave it.
I don’t think they intentionally excluded healthcare or comfortable living from essential needs. Yes the threshold for essential is fuzzy, but it’s a pretty damn low bar that isn’t being met for many people (in the US at least), but could be at a relatively low cost.
As far as basic needs go: affordable clothing, healthy food, clean water, access to annual preventative healthcare and urgent acute care, small but well maintained living space with climate control, basic communication device and internet plan, public transportation/(e)bike, walking distance to grocery stores and parks.
Non-basic needs: car ownership, suburban/rural living, living in areas with extreme temperature or acute water supply issues, luxury clothing/electronics/etc.
2 replies →
> the traditional way to get people to work those jobs is to offer more money or other compensation.
And that will raise the cost of all services and goods, including the cost of having someone's basic needs met. Then we're back to square one, now what?
If the current cost of things is based on exploiting workers, then costs should rise.
However, I don't think that's currently the case.
The current cost of things is now predominantly driven by how much could be charged. I see it all the time: "the value of something is determined by the maximum price that the market is willing to pay".
So if the price is based on the maximum they could charge, then they won't be able to raise the prices because they will lose all their customers. They will have to find a more efficient business model.
The place where most cuts should happen is at the top of the pay scale. There is absolutely no good reason that the person who owns the company that picks up my garbage should be making tens or hundreds of millions of dollars every year.
But regardless of how they streamline their business models to allow for maximum profitability, one thing is certain...
If we need to employ systemic, predatory behavior that forces people to take unsavory jobs to survive then we are purposefully misunderstanding what a free market really is.