More comments on the above.
I don’t actually like the subscription model for somethings but it guarantees that the person writing the software has a certain amount of income coming in per month. And as long as land lords (housing scalpers) are able to charge whatever they want they will create poverty wherever the income is not balanced with the outcome.
For example, and this is a real life example, if you live in zone where the expenses are 1000 and you make 2000 then you have 1000 left per month to use for other things like basic necessities. But if the land lords get together and do something like set a market price to something like 2000 and your employer doesn’t match that then you have no disposable income. Your asshole landlord can make you poor under our current system.
“Fred raised his rent from 1000 to 2000 so I’ll raise my rent to 2000 too so I can get market prices!” well did your tenants get a raise to match the expenses? When you raised rent to 2000 did you check if the people renting are getting that same amount of income?
When you have two different groups setting the price for income and the price for outcome (expenses) that never talk to each other and there are no price controls to prevent exploitation you have a terribly designed system.
Wait, you’re saying one person pays you a specific amount for the work you do for them and a totally unrelated narcissitic pyschopathic person sets the price for basic necessities? Is this hell? Why can’t we settle land like our ancestors did? They didn’t pay rent on a continual basis. They didn’t suffer poverty or homelessness. There wasn’t even a word in their language for it.
What we have is slavery. Henry George said in Progress and Poverty, that if you block someone from the resources they need to survive they either become your slaves to get them, or they die from lack of access or they revolt.
Yes there is worse slavery called chattel slavery and there is better slavery called debt slavery but we’re in the middle at wage or work slavery. It’s work or die. The natives had it better, as long as the other tribes weren’t attacking they had it better. And the settlers did too. It’s been documented.
In my opinion the catalyst for horrible things happens when a group of horrible people decide you can’t access the resources that nature gave you. People say life isn’t fair. That’s a lie. Life is fair or nature to be specific. Nature gives you everything you need to survive. It’s people and often greedy selfish people who gatekeep the resources nature meant for all and say, “You have to do things for me or I won’t let you access food and water. You’ll die.” That’s the exact same definition of slavery. “Work or die”
Those guys support this. Those guys support genocide of native people, they support slavery, they support starvation warlord landlord tactics, they are not good people. They are want you to suffer for their pleasure. We have fucking robots you assholes. We can have them do all the work. In the corona pandemic we realized that all of us can survive with 20% of the work force. All people can survive with 20% of people working. I was one of those people working through the pandemic.
We can have a better world. We throw out 40% of the food we create. We have enough food with current and vertical farming to produce food for 7x over.
If a mother doesn’t feed her children and lets them die that’s not survival of the fittest. It’s neglect. It’s the mother being irresponsible. It’s the mother not doing her responsibilities. If your society has poverty and homelessness and 40% of food is discarded and 40% or housing is unused, then your society fails. Your society is oppressive and even evil. If you block people from the food and shelter nature provides and then blames them for that your society is a failure.
Thomas Paine said that the goal of society should be that the person born today should have a better experience than the person born prior to that time. If your society is getting worse or more expensive it’s a failure and you’re a failure for not improving it.