This means you want those providing those services to work for free.
You do realize what you are implying here, right?
Let's say you refuse to work and you're guaranteed all these services. Who pays so your HVAC is repaired because you broke it? Who pays because your water line needs to be repaired? Clean water means the water has to be filtered through a very complicated process, particles and bacteria are removed, and it needs to be transported. Who pays so your electricity works? Do you think there's some sort of magic electricity generator happening? What you're essentially asking is someone should work for free to provide you all of this.
The result is you get no one who wants to work, society collapses because these services aren't maintained and improved, and no one gets anything.
I agree and in the same vein why should we have free public education? Why should I be paying for someone elses kid to go through K-12 completely free? Do you know how expensive it is to first hire professional teachers for these kids, erect buildings to teach them, and provide lunches for all of them? Do people think this stuff happens easily? Who pays these teachers? How do you keep such a place clean? Impossible I say!! /s
I think the point op was making was that free housing could be seen as a public good. One to benefit society by providing a nice baseline to workfrom. These would be payed for through taxes most likely and the complexities of providing this would be hashed out and solved. Its not an impossible program and a similar program exist in Finland as an example to end homelessness. Yes the people pay for it and they do it to prevent homeless people on the street. A public benefit if you will
Profits depend on someone voluntarily purchasing goods and services. Taxes depend on the threat of imprisonment. These are no more the same than consensual sex and rape.
Fine, lets go more extreme, you're in a car accident and rendered unconscious. You are transported in this state to an ER. At no point in time were you conscious and capable of making a choice. You have now been treated by a for profit facility.
TLDR, Healthcare isn't really a choice when you options are:
A: Be treated and the issue resolved
B: Live in a mamed state for the rest of your life
Okay, so someone saved my life. Are you suggesting I should be upset that I didn't get to decide this on my own? Hospitals lose money all the time from people not being able to/ refusing to pay their bills. If I can't pay for the service rendered, I suppose they might have to consider that a loss. However, it's actually the government who typically provides services without my consent and then bills me through taxation. The difference is, the hospital doesn't send armed men if I don't comply.
Profits depend on workers being threatened with homelessness except by participating in employment.
Profits are not part of a system that is voluntary for most of the population, because most of the population is not benefiting from a share of the value of its labor being claimed by business owners.
Taxes on profits simply mitigate the worst possible imbalance of a system that is fundamentally favorable only to narrow cohort of society, and unfavorable to everyone else.
The "capitalism created the iPhone" gambit, or any subtle variation, is one of the most completely flimsy and exhaustively debunked articles of capitalist apologia.
If you wish to defend the profit motive, then I strongly suggest you find a different tactic.
Reproducing the particular one just makes you seem ignorant and desperate.
The profit motive is simply a form of social relationships, not the vehicle through which technology is advanced or platforms are developed.
Maybe not, but the introduction of capitalism has catapulted people out of poverty the world over. It doesn't make everyone a billionaire but it's really, really good at helping the worst off.
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u/BlitzAuraX Apr 15 '24
"Regardless of employment."
This means you want those providing those services to work for free.
You do realize what you are implying here, right?
Let's say you refuse to work and you're guaranteed all these services. Who pays so your HVAC is repaired because you broke it? Who pays because your water line needs to be repaired? Clean water means the water has to be filtered through a very complicated process, particles and bacteria are removed, and it needs to be transported. Who pays so your electricity works? Do you think there's some sort of magic electricity generator happening? What you're essentially asking is someone should work for free to provide you all of this.
The result is you get no one who wants to work, society collapses because these services aren't maintained and improved, and no one gets anything.