this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2025
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Not a viable take though. Housing, clothing, food.. none of them are free either. A more viable solution is to control the markets by setting limits, like they did here, and then provide a safety net for people so they will always be able to buy this stuff. It would be nice if it was free, but it's a long road to get there. Social politics can provide survival without abolishing stuff like money in the meanwhile.
Some people feel like if you can't provide society with your labor, you should still be fed, clothed, and housed.
IMO, people who don't work, still contribute to society: raising family, being friends with people, creating art, and so on.
Things that aren't easily measured by the dollar bill, but key to a good civilization.
And arguably more important to the prevalence of human civilization. Otherwise, places like South Korea wouldn't be so worried about their shut-in youth population and declining birthrates while being currently at the top of the world's tech industry.
Not to otherwise disagree with you but I would argue that raising family is hard work
I think essentially everybody agrees, the debate is where to put the lines for "can't" and "needs"
I think you're giving people too much credit.
Price floors and price ceilings reliably cause market failures like shortages and unemployment. If we're not willing to let people die without it, then we end up playing stupid games like "free emergency room only".
Economics is a social science and every proposal should be based on empirical results, not intuition.
Look at European economics. Healthcare isn't free but sure feels like it. Lifesaving medication is not free but you can ask social services for the money that you need and you can always survive. Water isn't free but if you can't pay you get the money to buy water. "Free" can be the same as having a price and providing people with the funds to pay that price.
So my argument was against "free as in beer".
I understand your argument. We certainly aren't the first to investigate this. Would you please provide a source for your claim?
What claim? That social services can provide money if you do not have it? Here's an example for the Netherlands. There's tons of socialist constructs in European countries that provide support if you have trouble.
No, the "more viable" claim. Compared to free as in beer.