SilentSadness
Sleepy.
- Feb 28, 2023
- 1,378
As far as I'm concerned, the government always has a moral duty to give every one of its citizens basic necessities to live comfortably including food, housing, healthcare, assisted dying and more. Since these are supposed to be human rights, it doesn't make sense that anyone should have to work for them, or that you only get an unlivable amount for free if you don't work at all. Some people I have explained this to have told me that if the government provides these things to people then most people will just not work and there will not be enough resources to go around. Firstly, I think this view is necessarily anti-human, since it assumes that people only deserve to live if they work for it. Which makes them a slave. Secondly, I think it's incorrect to assume that people would not work. Currently, the vast majority of people are working as much as they can just to survive. They don't have a choice at all but to spend most of their time working just so they can be fed and rent somewhere. The result is that they don't have any time to work on anything bigger that could help anyone, but perhaps more egregiously it actually increases their requirements. If people spend most of their time working then they spend more time consuming resources as a coping mechanism. And also, basic necessities wouldn't include anything extra like going on holiday. The problem is countries that have systems of benefits take them away if you start to work meaning you have to work at least 8 hours per day to earn enough to do anything extra. My conclusion is that this system is sick and twisted and only benefits the 0.01% who live on their private islands in the ocean.
