Timeline for Why should the state not provide for basic necessities?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
7 events
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| Feb 7, 2023 at 2:07 | comment | added | user4012 | @AlexPakka - wrong Roosevelt :) And thus wrong time period. I agree it was more "had plutocratic features" than "was plutocracy", but the mood/features fit your scenario. | |
| Feb 7, 2023 at 0:02 | comment | added | Alex Pakka | @user4012 Your comment is not correct. US wasn't a plutocracy neither in 1933 nor in 1939. One can argue it had certain plutocratic features or tendencies in one period or another, but describing it as a plutocracy is not widely accepted by historians; the term was and is, however, widely used by communist or fascist regimes' propaganda to describe west as a whole. In the end, poor and malnourished still had a vote and a voice. Also, I provided the quoted sentece as an example of what might happen in theory. Historically, the behavior of plutocrats was more nuanced, of course. | |
| Feb 6, 2023 at 22:59 | comment | added | user4012 | "In a plutocracy, wealthy might see poor and malnourished as not a threat to their rule, thus not a problem they should spend their current or potential wealth on." - US politics has many OBVIOUS counter-examples to this, Teddy Rosevelt's policies being the most iconic and credited with delaying the popular spread of socialism until early 2000s, by 100 years. | |
| Apr 11, 2017 at 1:51 | comment | added | Alex Pakka | @sharur Obviously, the loans need to be provided with the background of improving productivity or skills. Say, if a person loans 20 units, 40 is offered instead where 20 goes towards training by a local employer or some other similar program. That said, in countries with low unemployment (~5% like Canada and US) a lot of people in dire need of state help have either substance abuse or mental health issues or simply personality traits like "I will not slave for anyone" that make them unemployable. That part can't be fixed by loans and requires broader public involvement. | |
| Apr 10, 2017 at 21:32 | comment | added | sharur | The issue with your loan example is that most who need help meeting basic necessities do not have the means to pay off the loans. Ex: If one's income 80 units and the cost of "basic" necessities are 100 units, then one will always need another loan and never be able to payoff the first loan. Therefore, the loan scheme described only works if one is guaranteed to get a "real" increase in income (as opposed to an increase driven by inflation). | |
| Apr 7, 2017 at 3:04 | history | edited | Alex Pakka | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 120 characters in body
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| Apr 7, 2017 at 2:54 | history | answered | Alex Pakka | CC BY-SA 3.0 |