• DreamButt@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      34
      arrow-down
      10
      ·
      1 year ago

      What idiot thinks anyone wants “stuff for free.” What the fuck do you think taxes are? We aren’t expecting people to shit houses out of their asses. We’re expecting our government WHICH WE PAY to provide us with basic dignity

      • pearsaltchocolatebar@discuss.online
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        13
        arrow-down
        23
        ·
        1 year ago

        Did you not read the comic?

        Also, I’m not sure why you think the government owes every citizen a house.

        I’m not arguing against social safety nets, but straight up paying for housing for every citizen is how you end up with everyone living in shoebox apartments.

        I’m sure that you haven’t even considered the numbers at all on this. If you think the current taxes will pay for it, you’re mistaken.

        Even if we took the entire military budget, that would be less than $2,500 per citizen per year.

        • Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          10
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          There’s a huge gulf between what this comic says (essentially housing, a basic human necessity) should be free, and what you’re attacking (everything is free). One of those is ABSOLUTELY doable. We live in a world of gross excess, if we stop arguing over how to kill people more efficiently, stop worrying about printing more money, we could give people a small home. Of course someone still has to pay/work for it, no one’s stupid lol.

          Even if it’s a “shoebox apartment” it’s better than streets. It’s one of the basic requirements for life. And who’s to say that provided home has to be your only option?

          • pinkdrunkenelephants@lemmy.cafe
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            7
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            Honestly, even if we replaced current employment with a 10-year indentured servitude contract with a guaranteed 1000 sq. ft. home and free utilities and maintenance for the rest of your life, that’d still be better than what we have now in a lot of ways.

            People only like the system we’re in because it provides the illusion of choice, not actual choices.

        • Jax@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          8
          arrow-down
          17
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          So far the people advocating for communism ITT are not even sly about shifting goalposts with the wind.

          Specifically OP, OP responded to a comment about free housing being unrealistic with “single income families should be allowed to exist” followed by something else that wasn’t relevant to free housing being unrealistic.

          At this point I just think they’re big communism shills. (I shouldn’t have to say this is a joke, but I know that I do.)

          • pearsaltchocolatebar@discuss.online
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            6
            arrow-down
            15
            ·
            1 year ago

            They’re just children who expect everything to be hand fed to them by the government and have no sense of nuance. They look at the utopia that communism promises without realizing that humans are selfish and greedy animals, so it’ll never work.

            These people are a good example of why echo chambers are a bad thing. They don’t stop to think about why their beliefs might be wrong.

            • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              12
              arrow-down
              2
              ·
              1 year ago

              Humans are shaped by their material conditions

              Also if humans were naturally greedy it would make sense for 99 percent of humanity to overthrow the 1 percent and distribute the benefits of society more equally.

              • Grayox@lemmy.mlOP
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                9
                arrow-down
                3
                ·
                1 year ago

                Also if humans are naturally greedy it would make even less sense to stick with a capitalist system

    • frezik@midwest.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      18
      arrow-down
      5
      ·
      1 year ago

      There’s an entire corpus of books and documents critiquing the current system and on how a society based on mutual aid would work. None of them “expect everything to be provided for free”.

    • deaf_fish@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      13
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      I am not aware of a way to have coercion free society. But I am very sure we can massively reduce the amount of coercion necessary to keep our current society running well.

      • pearsaltchocolatebar@discuss.online
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        12
        arrow-down
        16
        ·
        1 year ago

        Not disagreeing, but the message of “cancel all rent and mortgages,” is silly and shows a clear lack of understanding on how the world works.

    • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      14
      arrow-down
      4
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      “Hey wait a second why isn’t the state enforcing my property relations for free? The peasants aren’t paying rent, someone shoot them!”

      • R0cket_M00se@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        10
        arrow-down
        6
        ·
        1 year ago

        Progress and Poverty, and you still can’t just have everything for free even in a better system.

        • explodicle@local106.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Wouldn’t the LVT+UBI that Henry George proposes effectively cancel rent and then some? We’d be getting paid 100% of the surplus from land use, not just a safety net.

        • Grayox@lemmy.mlOP
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          1 year ago

          I’ll have to add that to my list, always looking to learn more.

          • R0cket_M00se@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            1 year ago

            It’s a good read, makes you realize how swindled we got, and what we might have had if they’d adopted these ideas in the late 1800’s.

        • Grayox@lemmy.mlOP
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          10
          arrow-down
          7
          ·
          1 year ago

          Considering you cant name a book, i doubt it. I’m currently reading The Value of Everything by Mariana Mazzucato and Yurugu by Marimba Ani. I cant recommend both of them enough. Its about culture as much as it is about economics.

          • PatFusty@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            5
            arrow-down
            5
            ·
            1 year ago

            This is some hard hexbear vibes. Asking for titles of books read is unbearably cringe.

          • pearsaltchocolatebar@discuss.online
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            8
            arrow-down
            15
            ·
            1 year ago

            I mean, no. I’m not going to go dig up the syllabus for my econ classes just to prove a point.

            You clearly don’t understand economics if you think paying for housing for 335,000,000 citizens is even remotely feasible without a major tax increases on everyone.

            Communism is a nice thought experiment, but it’ll never actually work because humans are awful.

            • explodicle@local106.com
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              10
              arrow-down
              4
              ·
              1 year ago

              “Humans are awful” is why they call econ the dismal science; did they actually present that as a reason why communism wouldn’t work when your classes covered it?

              • Jax@sh.itjust.works
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                4
                arrow-down
                4
                ·
                1 year ago

                I would imagine that the primary reason anyone thinks communism will fail is that greed is too rampant amongst many people these days. I happen to agree, communism is nice to think about but I have worked for the state of California. I’ve seen what having a job that you do next to nothing at, get paid a liveable wage on, and basically can’t be fired from has done to state govt. It’s a fucking mess. These are people who, right now, are complaining about homeless people despite the only thing separating them is the fact that they were lucky enough to know someone who worked for the state. I mean it when I say they quite literally do nothing and get paid for it.

                Cali state govt is socialist as fuck, and the outcome is things like millions of peoples information being leaked. We’re talking social security numbers, drivers license, where you live, etc. If you can’t tell me how you avoid the equivalent of things like this happening in a communist govt (because the outcome with communist govt corruption is worse by a large margin) then I just turn my brain off and stop reading.

                • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  7
                  arrow-down
                  3
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  Cali state govt is socialist as fuck

                  Wait Californians democratically own and manage the means of production? Holy shit.

                  Oh you mean a liberal state that has slightly higher taxes :(

                  • Jax@sh.itjust.works
                    link
                    fedilink
                    arrow-up
                    3
                    arrow-down
                    5
                    ·
                    1 year ago

                    No, you silly head, I’m talking about the people who work for the state. I’m not talking about the state itself.

                    Fucks sake, pay attention.

                • explodicle@local106.com
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  3
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  I assume that when everyone else in this thread is talking about socialism and communism, they mean like the Wikipedia definitions, not just more government.

                  • Jax@sh.itjust.works
                    link
                    fedilink
                    arrow-up
                    5
                    arrow-down
                    2
                    ·
                    1 year ago

                    Well, considering OP likes to name drop books they’re apparently reading on economics I’d say we’re dealing with a different class of duning-kruger.

                • pinkdrunkenelephants@lemmy.cafe
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  arrow-down
                  2
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  Having bureaucracy managed by an AI with everything heavily encrypted would put a stop to a lot of bullshit. Just saying

                  • Jax@sh.itjust.works
                    link
                    fedilink
                    arrow-up
                    3
                    ·
                    1 year ago

                    No, it wouldn’t, because in order for that to be put in place the union would have to agree to it. The union will do everything and I mean every single thing to make sure everyone knows that this shit is fucked.

                    The union for state employees (in the state of California) is good at two things: keeping itself alive, and making sure that state employees are protected to insane degrees (like being able to sue your manager for a HOST of reasons).

            • Grayox@lemmy.mlOP
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              10
              arrow-down
              8
              ·
              1 year ago

              So you haven’t read a book on economics since you graduated, got it.