If society could ensure that everyone could satisfy minimum needs, should it do so?

The Bible says no such thing.

Well, I think that in this world we should look out for each other. We depend on each other, even on people we never meet since we all make up the canvas that hold together the society that makes up the requirements for our existence in the modern world. I believe that a society where everyone is protected is based on decency as much as self preservation rather than being detrimental to the incentive to make something of your life.

welcome to the communism, it’s a nice social theory, but the problem lies with greed, that doesn’t go away, people will always want more stuff, whatever that stuff may be. If you could ensure everyone in a society would have enough to live comfortably someone will come along and say we need more, and more, and more, etc.

The problem wouldn’t be getting people to work, it’d be telling them that they can’t get more stuff than the other guy.

I am not saying that people can’t earn as much as they want. I am just talking about have a guarantee of being provided with the basics.

@ABoyNamedBoobs03 I agree, but people confuse communism and socialistic ideas with each other. We’ve practiced socialist ideas for a long time in Sweden, with great success. Essentially, it’s what built this country during the last century. Several countries in Europe have been, and do practice what the US would call socialist politics. There is nothing wrong with socialism. It’s how you apply it in a democracy.

I think providing an economical and social safety net is the right thing for society to do. That, while making sure there remains a healthy stimulus to actively participate in society through work and contribution.

Creating a underclass that has lost so much access to economical sources that they will see no way out but crime is a risk if one doesn’t provide such a system. I do not want to pamper people, but I believe in helping people back to their feet and helping them to stand up. A social minimum and basic health care and education go with that.

Not all that loose in life have themselves to blame.
I would rather say, most do not, from my observation.

@DarkScribe , I am no bibilcal scholar, but I remember being taught this in Hebrew school. I looked for references and found this: http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:GfsdV0RhvNcJ:www.biblicalheritage.org/Bible%2520Studies/tithes.htm+bible+charity+one+tenth&cd=9&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

@LostInParadise I am no bibilcal scholar, but I remember being taught this in Hebrew school. I looked for references and found this

As I said, the Bible doesn’t “say” this in the sense that it instructs this – which is what was implied. The Bible has some vague, sometimes disputed references to the practice, that is all. It also has references to animal and human sacrifice, as well as Dragons, Unicorns and witches.

@oratio no doubt, sweden has one of my favorite systems today. I’ve always felt that more countries should follow Sweden’s model, but as you said socialism and communism are two very different things, but I think what the OP is talking about is more in terms of the government providing virtually everything for you, instead of just the essentials such as education, health care, etc etc.

Socialism works great when implemented correctly, communism, however, does not.

I think it’s reasonable to set a minimum standard of living and to support people who fall below that standard of living. However, I also think it’s reasonable to expect people who are being supported in that way to make reasonable efforts to support themselves, or to contribute back in some way.

So no, I don’t think you get free support if you’re capable of contributing but not doing anything to contribute, or capable of supporting yourself and not trying to support yourself. If you need social assistance to live, well, the local government has lots of jobs that need to be done, from street cleaning to landscaping to typing and filing.

And I think that, as simple and straightforward as this is to outline this way, the devil’s in the details. As soon as you start making policies as to how people can get support, you will get people who would rather game the system than live honestly. To some extent, you fix this by making the system as un-gameable as possible, but you also have to accept that some people are going to succeed anyway.

satisfying minimum needs?
I bet you my minimum needs are different then yours. Even being realistic.

“some guideline could be established”
Good luck.

“The Bible says that everyone owes a tenth of their earnings to charity.”
Another fly in the soup. Determining who gets what and how much.

It is a lofty goal that as humans we should stride for. But unobtainable ..
Individuality always gets in the way.

We Americans have a deeply ingrained animosity toward those who are perceived to be gaming the system at others’ expense. “Fairness” has a higher place in our values system than in most other countries, I think. The idea that someone could get something that they don’t deserve rankles us so much that many would rather be overly restrictive than risk some small level of abuse.

We saw that in the question of requiring Photo IDs for voters; even though there was essentially no evidence of voter fraud, the mere idea of it made people willing to impose additional hardship on thousands of voters. We see it in the health care debates; the suggestion that illegal immigrants might abuse a universal system is enough to outweigh the potential societal benefits in many minds. We saw it in the old “welfare queens” imagery from the 1980’s; the suggestion that people on welfare were buying Cadillacs angered people enough to gut much of the social support for people in poverty.

We’ll eventually have to get beyond this. We have to be able to accept the reality that some minor abuse, galling though it may be, is not a reason to not pursue the greater good. Those cases of abuse will inevitably attract the spotlight (see ACORN) and trigger a wrathful response. The benefits, all the lives made better, go largely unannounced. That will always be the current against which socially progressive movements have to swim.

Our ideologies have robbed us our community and our humanity. In my ideal world we would all view each other as a family, a web of interconnectedness. And why wouldn’t you want to help your family? Everyone should have food, shelter and care. According to Rousseau if we all had these basic needs met, we’d flourish in art and love.

I’d give up my iPhone and my minicooper if all people were cared for. Money and things mean nothing. What matters is people.

“Money and things mean nothing. What matters is people.”

I totally agree.
Until it is not enough money and they want more food.

That’s not the question.

Just an observation from my personal experience:

A long time ago I worked in a big, busy pastry kitchen in France. Over there, pastry cooks use a flat plastic bowl scraper called a corne for lots of different tasks. It’s an indispensable tool, and everyone carries one in his pocket (the earthy saying goes that “a pastry cook without a corne is like a whore without a hole”).

This company decreed that each cook had to supply his own corne, and you’d catch hell if you didn’t have it. Well, everything was fine as long as the number of cornes equaled the number of cooks. But as soon as there was even one less corne than cooks, then all the cornes seemed to disappear. Everyone knew that the person who was without would steal the first one he saw, then the newly bereft would steal the next one, etc. So suddenly, they all got hidden.

This created frequent and unnecessary perturbations in the efficiency of the whole operation that, were there a way to calculate it, certainly cost the company lots of money. The whole issue could have been avoided if the company had supplied the cornes. Of course, there would have been a good number of lost cornes that the company would have had to replace, and that would have been annoying. But the overall business would have benefited both in material terms and workplace atmosphere.

@ABoyNamedBoobs03 The question had nothing to do with capping achievement or goods. It refers to minimums, not maximums. Like it or not we have been setting minimum levels of needs to be met for all citizens. We decided that we needed a literate workforce when our country industrialized so we instituted free mandatory minimal education. We decided that people who work should not just be thrown away when they get too old to work so we instituted Social Security. We decided that children should not starve so we offer food stamps. As people with disabilities lived normal life spans, we decided their families should not bear the responsibility of supporting them as adults and offered SSI. We decided that the elderly and poor should have access to health care so we provide Medicare and state programs like Medi-Cal. We now understand that many working families do not have access to medical insurance and/or medical care. To correct that we are we will provide that access. We saw this coming 15 years ago but did not follow through. Now we are at a point where everyone recognizes the risk of financial ruin or early death in the event of a major illnerss. If we don’t offer this minimal benefit this year, it will happen next year.

This has nothing to do with killing incentive or initiative. A small number of people have tried to get something for nothing, a few always will. The vast majority of us will always want to work/achieve whether because we want to acquire more things or we love doing that work or that we just want to keep our brains occupied. Really, screaming communism and leaping onto the nearest barricade is passe and meaningless.

If we gave everyone a home, medical care, food, clothes, education, basic toiletries, electricity, appliances, furniture and a bus pass but allowed anyone who is interested to work for luxuries such as cars, cable TV, jewelry, or anything else above and beyond the freebies (no matter how generous they are)... the people getting the freebies will eventually feel entitled to the luxuries as well.

I suppose I’m rather cynical about this, but I it seems to me that people in general do not like others to have much more than they do regardless of any disparities in efforts to earn them.

It’s not about what people want, it’s what is considered a need. @Supacase The decision is made at a societal level. You as an individual cannot decide what that level is. We have decided as a society that if children get sick and their parents cannot afford to pay a doctor, the govt will. If the parents can afford a dr but refuse to care for a sick child., the govt might take the child out of the parent’s care (neglect). By the same token if an adult has an ongoing condition and even though they have a job and are willing to pay for health insurance, they must have an option to receive that insurance and health care.

As far as “freebies” go, we have decided we don’t want people dying on the streets from starvation and disease. That means we provide food, shelter and medical care. What they want as far as a a steak dinner, 7 room house, or a tummy tuck is irrelevent. If they want more than the basics, they have to work for it.

The problem we have now is people working full time who cannot afford the basics. I assume you don’t mind the fast food worker getting a subsidized flu shot so he doesn’t sneeze on your fries. Are you willing to let him have a subsidized insurance plan so that he can see a Dr regularly and possibly prevent a heart attack or should we wait until the ambulance brings him into the ER anb we all pay for his critical care?

@galileogirl lol how did I “scream communism and leap onto the nearest barricade…” ? lol I mean honestly, I want to know because I have absolutely no idea how you came to the conclusion. Did you just see the word communism in my post and assume I was some McCartney nut job? Philosophically and theoretically, communism is great, I’d love to find a way for it to work, but the problem is resource scarcity. as it stands currently it’s just not a system that functions well on a large scale. How am I being “Passe and Meanigless” about it? I’m giving a thought out answer and a concerted effort to do so to the best of my knowledge. So please, enlighten my as to how I am being so ignorant.

@DarkScribe the Bible says no such thing is too strong a statement. The Bible does say something like that (Deuteronomy 14:22–29 ), but as with everything, it is dependent on translation and interpretation. There are several other passages that discuss charity and sharing.

@YARNLADY The Bible does say something like that (Deuteronomy 14:22–29 )

I suggest that you re-read those passages. Even if you wish to regard it as a religious instruction rather than comment annual tithing was not “to charity” and was regarding seed and stock to consumed or used by the person tithing. That reference has nothing to do with a tithe for charity. It was to be eaten or sold and the profit made to be used by the “tither”. The third year “charitable” tithe was only a percentage of an increase or profit, if there was one, and so it was also not a “tenth of income for charity”. The best it could be is a tenth of an increase in income for that year.

As I originally said. The Bible says no such thing.

The only New Testament (the part of the Bible mostly followed) reference was specific to various herbs. Also nothing to do with charity.

@DarkScribe In fact, I did read those passages, in several different versions, just before I posted this answer. Your statement is wrong, the Bible does say “such thing” just not in the exact wording you want it to. The comment “such thing” means words like that, or words to that effect, and by your own follow up, the “such” words are indeed, in the Bible.

@YARNLADY The Bible says that everyone owes a tenth of their earnings to charity.

This was the claim.

The Bible says no such thing. You seem to be losing track of the thread. What references there are to tithing in the Bible are NOT that one tenth of all earnings at all times to go to charity.

@DarkScribe When people can interpret the passages in the Bible to say it, then that is the same as it ‘does’ say it.

@galileogirl Wow. Where did you get any of that out of my post? I never said or meant me as an individual. I said “we” and meant we as a society – I thought that was a given.

How you decided from what I wrote that I begrudge a fast food worker from a flu shot, or anyone receiving supplemental government services is beyond me. All I basically said is that, no matter how much people in general have, they always want more. Seeing other people with things makes the desire even stronger. “People in general” includes everyone except the top of the top and even they probably wish they had things like better relationships or more friends when they see people who have them. Good god, even I do it. I would love a new car, a bigger house, a better wardrobe, etc.

There is a reason we have sayings like “the grass is always greener” and “we always want what we can’t have.” I didn’t come up with this out of left field.

Misinterpret and overreact much?

In a perfect society, each would produce according to his ability and each would receive according to his need.

Until such a society becomes commonplace (it does exist in some areas) there will be a discrepancy between some with excess and others in need. The best we can do with that in mind is to encourage giving, and discourage greed, through education.

@YARNLADY In a perfect society, each would produce according to his ability and each would receive according to his need.

Agreed. It would be nice but I won’t hold my breath while waiting for it to arrive.

Forgetting Bibles, religions and the supposedly devout – all of whom and which have done very little to make the world a better place and much toward destroying it, some sensible taxing and incentive on the part of Government could go a long way toward alleviating much of the stress of the genuinely underprivileged.

If someone who was financially capable was to support an underprivileged family, help with everyday living, assist with children’s schooling etc., sponsor in fact, and in return be allowed to claim (as with charitable donations) the amounts involved as a tax deduction it might increase the desire to be charitable. If all goods had a multi-tiered sales tax with those at the lower financial demographics and any who full time assisted them paying less for all goods, that would also help.

Here (Australia) more than twenty years ago the government brought out a scheme to reduce the cost of rental accommodation. For any small investor who wished to invest in rental property – as an aid to funding retirement etc., the Government allowed then to “Negative Gear”. That means that any shortfall between their cost in building/buying/maintaining the property and the rental returns was a complete tax deduction – as long as they owed more tax than the shortfall, they could claim it back. Investors ended up with effectively free housing and the competition from increased numbers of rental homes on the market kept the rents much lower than they would otherwise be. Some of my daughters while still in their twenties owned two or thee houses. One daughter owned a block of apartments before turning twenty (with a huge mortgage of course – but she will own it outright in another five years or so.)

There are a great many ways that some thoughtful approaches by Government can improve the lot of the poorer members of society, but not many governments do so. One of the biggest problems are those who “rort” the system, accept charity that they are not really entitled to. Those who could work but won’t etc.

@YARNLADY “When people can interpret the passages in the Bible to say it, then that is the same as it ‘does’ say it.”

that’s quite the claim you’re making there…