Socialize basic needs

what counts as a basic need?

• let's start with housing, clothes, food iand housing would of course include utilities like water, electricity and internet 💬 discussion TO DO: link to a more elaborate description page, of a cheap reasonable comfortable standard of living
• also schooling and health care 💬 discussion Status quo: Some countries already have this but it needs improvement. Also, maybe we should link to pages about how education could be redesigned, and how health care could be redesigned. And what actions/nextsteps various countries would need in any case

why not just socialize everything?

You know when free market enthusiasts say that socialism is slavery - because "if goods are free, then people must be coerced to work for free to produce the goods"? Well that WOULD be true if ALL goods were socialized. On the other hand, if just a small subset of goods (the essential ones, roughly) are socialized, the goods can be produced without any forced labor at all! 💬 discussion TO DO: add: 40hr/wk vs 7hr/wk model thought experiment. What society would you rather live in btw

who would pay for it / how would it work ?

• TO DO: tax model, simple numbers compared to status quo US gov budget(...)( link to new budget draft (use a "see also" popup icon?) )

but wouldn't everything be the same and boring? No!

• housing can be diverse and have character, which barely impacts the costs btw 💬 discussion TO DO: link to page with examples and brainstorming. See also: walkability
• clothing too, lots of variety

misc discussionsmisc discussions

• environmental impact of certain food choices - too high to socialize? Then should we maybe only socialize cheap plant-based food (and design it to be nutritionally complete)? Also, soup kitchens or what?
• status quo economy is very good at producing lots of cheap clothes, but not so good at producing lots of cheap housing. So we need a different approach to socializing each. Btw we shouldn't have to rebuild all housing from scratch. Existing housing can provide most of it. How to fairly seize it from landlords? We can be harsh to big real estate companies, but that's very different from small homeowners who just rent out a room or two in the same house they live in
• how does this compare to universal basic income?
  • UBI has inflation issues, potentially
  • parents who have bad enough addictions may still end up starving their kids
• socialized basic needs helps prevent overworking. People won't have to work their butts off to afford basic stuff
• this is aligned with the USA's "right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". Fulfilling basic needs is required for the life part. And then people will have more free time (more liberty) to pursue happiness btw