[SeaGypsy]

OK Cog, you know I am your only socialist friend around here, so I'm giving you a question- response.

If you have followed the tiny house movement you will be aware of some very affordable alternative housing options. In countries like ours there is no reason why not-

1- limit cash supports to 6-12 months of unemployment.

2- once the limit is up, the household must relocate to a government funded Tiny House Village.

3- residents of the tiny house village will receive $0.00 in cash from government sources.

4- residents of said village will be provided- sufficient food in raw form to ensure their health, same with utilities & medicare, access to public transit, vouchers for work search- essentially everything required to sustain life.

5- residents securing employment income sufficient to sustain themselves shall have reasonable time, 1-2 years to sort themselves out & leave.

6- employed residents shall pay double the ordinary tax rates until they are able to self fund.

There would be business opportunities in building & maintenance, logistics & provision of stores.

There would be no money for- drugs, cars, hookers, gambling etc etc, no money at all unless it is worked for. Thus the incentive to work is to have not survival, but life choices.

I am confident something like this is possible, could work, could be much cheaper for tax payers than the cash & cash equivalent welfare churn.
Some folks would move in & never leave unless sent to prison. Anyone wanting to have any semblance of materialistic freedom would have to get cracking.

This is extreme socialism in concurrence with mainstream capitalism. It is compassionate, but reasonable.

Whadya reckon?

[Cog]

I shall opine about your proposal at length later. For now, I must join the legions of others who work for a living and can not live rent free.

[SeaGypsy]

My alarm goes @ 5am 5 days a week & my wife gets home from work about 11pm. We will catch up soon bro...

[onlooker]

This is an interesting question because it delves into the issue of ownership especially of land and also the sustenance of the Earth. In ancient times, you could say all people owned Earth as the bounty of the Earth was theirs if they could attain it. They're was no ownership of land and of the sustenance that that land provided. It that sense the distinction of wealth and poverty was much less apparent. This situation provided a sense of true freedom from both material yearnings and from a sense of captivity to work. The only work needed to be done pretty much was for basic sustenance and beyond that one had the time to do whatever one wished to do. Not only that the issue of self esteem was not tied to class distinctions as their were none per say.

[dohboi]

"it delves into the issue of ownership especially of land"

Indeed. But in these circle apparently you can't even bring the subject up without certain people going absolutely nuts.

Besides P inviting some unspecified entity to have sex with me, I have also been compared to Hitler--good to see that Godwin's Law is still alive and well!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

[onlooker]

"it delves into the issue of ownership especially of land"

Indeed. But in these circle apparently you can't even bring the subject up without certain people going absolutely nuts.

Besides P inviting some unspecified entity to have sex with me, I have also been compared to Hitler--good to see that Godwin's Law is still alive and well!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

stock-vector-crazy-80104624.jpg

[dohboi]

You like that graphic, don't you! '-)

[onlooker]

You like that graphic, don't you! '-)

It is the one I had on hand haha.

[Subjectivist]

This is an interesting question because it delves into the issue of ownership especially of land and also the sustenance of the Earth. In ancient times, you could say all people owned Earth as the bounty of the Earth was theirs if they could attain it. They're was no ownership of land and of the sustenance that that land provided. It that sense the distinction of wealth and poverty was much less apparent. This situation provided a sense of true freedom from both material yearnings and from a sense of captivity to work. The only work needed to be done pretty much was for basic sustenance and beyond that one had the time to do whatever one wished to do. Not only that the issue of self esteem was not tied to class distinctions as their were none per say.

A lot of people think that way, the noble savage image. However hunter gatherer groups were nomadic, they all shared the planet but they were not buddy buddy. Each tribal group passed back and forth over their territory, and when they encountered another group it could be anything from a festival to all out conflict and anything in between.

[Shaved Monkey]

Governments/society make the compromise of spending money on safety nets or security, police and prisons.
Its one or the other within a sliding scale.
Some people would rather live in a dog eat dog society, with lots of police and prisoners other would rather live in an egalitarian society that is more peaceful.
Fear of taxes and love of punishing the poor(rewarding the rich) are the drivers of dog eat dog, but it would be interesting to see the relative amount of taxation and need for personal security expenditure in both models.
I bet a socialised safety net is cheaper, than privatised and socialised security

When you look at the modeling for per capita spend for healthcare
The US spends way more than Australia and ours is mainly free for everyone.
Australia spends $3,800 per person US spends $8,700 per person
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... per_capita
Then compare
Police per 100,000 people
Aus 217 US 348
Prisoners per 100,000
Aus 151 US 698

Then compare murder rates, suicide rates etc etc.
Im not saying Australia is the pinnacle of an egalitarian society its far from it but its a sliding scale and Australia's safety nets are far more generous than the US's for now (conservative politicians are always trying to change that.)

[dohboi]

I should let him speak for himself, but I did not get the impression that onlooker was claiming that such early life was some kind of perfect paradise. But it certainly points out that there is not some deeply embedded DNA that requires humans to own land or to even want to own land. The concept is quite recent in the long history of the species, as far as I've seen.

As to 'noble savage,' people always pull that out whenever anyone dares to say anything remotely positive about any other lifestyle than the current consumerist industrial one. This is how deeply we almost all have been propagandized into loathing every other way of living, even many of us that recognize the deep problems with our current system.'

However much anyone might think that 'noble savages' have been romanticized by some writer or media portrayal, let me just point out the world-and-soul-destroying current consumerist life style has been romanticized many times more, no, I should say many, many orders of magnitude times more than anything else has ever been romanticized in the history of romanticization. Most people are exposed to at least 2000 messages a day all doing that exact thing.

[Subjectivist]

I should let him speak for himself, but I did not get the impression that onlooker was claiming that such early life was some kind of perfect paradise. But it certainly points out that there is not some deeply embedded DNA that requires humans to own land or to even want to own land. The concept is quite recent in the long history of the species, as far as I've seen.

As to 'noble savage,' people always pull that out whenever anyone dares to say anything remotely positive about any other lifestyle than the current consumerist industrial one. This is how deeply we almost all have been propagandized into loathing every other way of living, even many of us that recognize the deep problems with our current system.'

However much anyone might think that 'noble savages' have been romanticized by some writer or media portrayal, let me just point out the world-and-soul-destroying current consumerist life style has been romanticized many times more, no, I should say many, many orders of magnitude times more than anything else has ever been romanticized in the history of romanticization. Most people are exposed to at least 2000 messages a day all doing that exact thing.

You miss my point, in territory roaming hunter gatherer societies there is a tribal ownership ethic for the territory. They don't own a plot where they plant crops like farmers do, but they do own a route around their territory that they pass over in a circuit gathering seasonal resources section by section as they travel camping in areas as they go. If another tribe tries to move into their territory and harvest there resources they respond with violence if necessary.

[careinke]

2). Shut down ALL aspects of the rest of the government. (Something which I'm confident 99%+ of the citizens with functioning brains won't go for, once their government services all shut down -- including things like keeping the water, heat, lights, roads, etc. functioning and safe).

Next?

No government, especially the federal government, provides for my water, heat, or lights, (or even sewer for that matter), they do make an attempt at roads...

[onlooker]

You miss my point, in territory roaming hunter gatherer societies there is a tribal ownership ethic for the territory. They don't own a plot where they plant crops like farmers do, but they do own a route around their territory that they pass over in a circuit gathering seasonal resources section by section as they travel camping in areas as they go. If another tribe tries to move into their territory and harvest there resources they respond with violence if necessary.

That may be true Sub, but first this area is a common source and benefit for the entire tribe. Second, the delimitation is just for the needs of the tribe nothing else and thus in a world not too overpopulated they're is more than enough for everyone and every tribe. Contrast that with the present whereby some wealthy individuals actually own islands for themselves. Talk about excess and greed. Finally, is this characterization of territory guardianship much different than animals who also stake ownership to their "land or area". I think not. I think the point is that these savages were not afflicted by such greed and excess of wants and ambitions that modern humans are. That to me is a good thing and can even be characterized as noble in the long view of things.

[Outcast_Searcher]

No government, especially the federal government, provides for my water, heat, or lights, (or even sewer for that matter), they do make an attempt at roads...

Well, in my world, the DOE is involved with energy utilities, the EPA with water and sewer, and as you said, the government is involved with roads. Also, state and local governments rely on federal funding to run, especially for many roads. And state and local governments are often heavily involved in utilities. And of course government regulations for things like safety are a big part of utilities, road construction, etc.

I believe if you think "no government" is involved in any of the things you listed -- you are seriously deluding yourself, even if a private company owns the facilities involved (example: a road contractor may build a road but government (taxes) pays for public roads). Also some utilities such as water are increasingly being taken over by local governments.

So, you can pick at the details, but especially for safety issues, I can't agree with you here.

Now, if you're saying that you use your own facilities to provide all your utilities, that's nice for you. The 99ish percent who rely on public utilities of one form or another and the nearly 100% of folks who rely on public roads (even if they don't personally drive) need those services.

[Cog]

@Seagypsy

First to the positives about your proposal. Removing cash payments and providing the basics in terms of food and housing has some value in that those items can not be readily converted to ill use. No $200 Air Jordans and I-Phones which are the sort of things that piss off the tax-payers. I've watched the shows on TV of the tiny house phenomena and from a purely smaller environmental and cost standpoint they make sense.

Now to the negatives. I've been around tax payer provided housing before. Section 8 is what we call it here. People who do not own something outright, tend not to care for it. The maintenance of these tiny houses to keep them up and running would likely be more expensive than you might realize.

There is also this. A lot of people work under the table for the purposes of drugs or other entertainments, so there would still be the problems associated with poor life choices. People might consider their tiny house as a crash pad, where they know the could live the gansta life and always have a place to crash. Some rules like mandatory drug testing might have to be put in place so your village didn't turn into a rathole. I don't have a big problem with legalization of drugs for adults but the kids in that environment tend not to have good role models and would be neglected.

I think there is something to be said for your model, even though it grates on me a bit to have to pay for it. Fear of being homeless or being poor is a motivating factor for a lot of people to continue to go to work every day. If I remove that fear, the only motivating factor left is not being able to afford the nicer things in life.

I would add this requirement to your tiny house village. Everyone there must work. If not in the outside world then in the village to keep it clean, babysit kids whose parents are away to work, at least something to keep the basics of food and shelter coming in.

[SeaGypsy]

I agree Cog, I'm not at all claiming to have all the answers & your answer has a lot going for it. Part of what I'm getting at is the hypocrisy rife in the Keynesian model of welfare/ make work- it keeps a lot of the system going when nothing else does, but it doesn't solve any of the core problems of people, while perpetuating a grossly inefficient & morally corrupt beaurocracy.

[KaiserJeep]

The problem is one of scale. People tend to make bad assumptions when they figure out who can pay for what.

First, the US is the largest wealthy nation in the world. But in real terms, both the Middle Class and their incomes have been shrinking since at least the 1980s, probably the 1970s. Just two years back, we crossed the boundary where we had more people collecting benefits than were paying taxes. In 2015, according to the latest government figures, the economy grew only 2.4%. That is almost exactly the same as the real inflation rate (much larger than official figures).

In fact, inflation during the last decade is 20.1% by government figures, and over 50% in real terms. Which means that unless you are earning some extraordinary rate of return, your nest egg is shrinking not growing (in purchasing power).

Which is why we can't afford this or any of the plethora of Socialist wet dreams being proposed. The country is sliding into poverty any way you look at it. This is "slow crash", aka the beginning of the Long Emergency.

Peak Oil is real, it happened already, and from here on out - a period of decades - we decline until famine becomes widespread here as it already is elsewhere.

Damn shame we continue to burn all that fuel hauling our lazy carcasses around, rather than growing and transporting food.

Speculate as you will about this or other Socialist ideals. But there is no money for any of it.

[SeaGypsy]

Bummer so people are starving to death in the USA already KJ?!? Why is the media covering this up? Election season?

(Really already your country spends big on welfare, just badly. You don't want to acknowledge the personal benefit you get out of this spending, rather lie to yourself & be a hater. Your courts & prisons systems are a form of welfare spending, completely insane & out of control- because of people like you- who would prefer to lock someone up for stealing bread than give it to them. Or rather something else you just aren't saying? A more 'final' solution?)

[onlooker]

"Your courts & prisons systems are a form of welfare spending, completely insane & out of control- because of people like you- who would prefer to lock someone up for stealing bread than give it to them." Yes and this is the bedrock of the conservative ultra right wing who simply cannot perceive that not everyone is born with a silver spoon and that borrowing a phrase from Hillary Clinton though I rather not "It takes a village to raise a child". I do not mean necessarily on the community spending to rear children but everyone focusing in on whether even to have children and then everyone trying to impart some wisdom and good discipline to these children. But of course too much to expect in our already so dysfunctional system whereby school is a holding pen that simply teaches students to obey and memorize via repetition and a larger society especially TV, that either just hooks you to be a good consumer or hypnotizes children with violence and gratuitous risque programming. So our social ills have little to do with spending or lack thereof and most to do with ethos and priorities of the society at large.