In general, the people on this forum are among the smartest humans I interact with on a regular basis so am asking opinions on the following;

Humans have had the ability to satisfy every person's basic needs for at least a century. Furthermore, a large plurality (if not the vast majority) follow religions or philosophical systems that claim (and in some cases, demand) that helping your fellow beings is one of the highest "goods". So why is there still people homeless, starving and dying of curable diseases anywhere, especially in places like the US or Europe? Is there some secret plan by Democrats or Republicans (or any other party in charge around the world) to solve those things? What would it take to reduce deaths in the world from homelessness, starvation and lack of health care as close to zero as the number of insane people in the populace allows (meaning there will always be some number of crazies who will want to live in a tent or refuse health care) and is it even possible to do under any of the current political/economics systems?l

3 hours ago, npts2020 said:

So why is there still people homeless, starving and dying of curable diseases anywhere, especially in places like the US or Europe?

Good question.

For one thing, all current systems that I know of have at least some qualifying conditions before a given individual is in fact covered by it. For example, I am based in the EU, and while I can freely move to any other EU country if I feel like it anytime I want, that does NOT mean that I automatically become resident there and get access to the social welfare system in that country - that's linked to certain conditions, which sometimes can be quite difficult to fullfil, even if you're there legally. Right now I am having that precise issue - I am legally resident in a certain EU country, but due to my rather unusual personal circumstances have not managed to gain access to the social security system here, because I don't fit into any of the usual categories of that system. So what I am trying to say is that there will always be people who fall through the cracks for one reason or another.

More fundamentally, when it really comes down to it, altruism is a broad spectrum ranging from those who actively work at helping others in need, to those who are in it for themselves only. Most participants of any given system (ie those who elect the decision makers) will be somewhere in between those extremes. To ensure that no one falls through the cracks, the only viable solution would be some form of unconditional income that everyone gets, regardless of their personal circumstance, and without qualifying conditions ("universal basic income"). Even then, there's always going to be a small number who fail to manage themselves regardless. So this is a difficult problem. The only other option I could think of is to physically remove people from circumstances that are deemed detrimental to them, if necessary against their own will - not a good way to go, for obvious reasons that hopefully I don't need to explain.

Note that the idea of a UBI has been trialled in places, but there seems to be no widespread political will or broad enough public support to implement such a system. Perhaps also it simply isn't possible to make it work in practice, I don't know (I'm no expert on this).

5 hours ago, npts2020 said:

In general, the people on this forum are among the smartest humans I interact with on a regular basis so am asking opinions on the following;

Humans have had the ability to satisfy every person's basic needs for at least a century. Furthermore, a large plurality (if not the vast majority) follow religions or philosophical systems that claim (and in some cases, demand) that helping your fellow beings is one of the highest "goods". So why is there still people homeless, starving and dying of curable diseases anywhere, especially in places like the US or Europe? Is there some secret plan by Democrats or Republicans (or any other party in charge around the world) to solve those things? What would it take to reduce deaths in the world from homelessness, starvation and lack of health care as close to zero as the number of insane people in the populace allows (meaning there will always be some number of crazies who will want to live in a tent or refuse health care) and is it even possible to do under any of the current political/economics systems?l

One of the enduring features of human nature is the struggle between altruism and self interest. Political systems that try to impose altruism (e.g. communism) always fail, because people always want to look after their own interests first. Religions and some political creeds exhort people to altruism but it is always an uphill struggle and only partially successful. Thoughtful politics tries to strike a balance between allowing people to keep the fruits of individual enterprise and taking care of the needy. This is the social bargain that people in western societies accept.

That being so, there will always be a tail of the population distribution curve that suffers hardship.

Edited 11 hours ago11 hr by exchemist

2 hours ago, Markus Hanke said:

Good question.

Agreed.

And yours is a good answer +1.

I would just like to add that some rough sleepers in the UK choose to avoid accommodation available to them.

7 hours ago, npts2020 said:

Humans have had the ability to satisfy every person's basic needs for at least a century. Furthermore, a large plurality (if not the vast majority) follow religions or philosophical systems that claim (and in some cases, demand) that helping your fellow beings is one of the highest "goods". So why is there still people homeless, starving and dying of curable diseases anywhere, especially in places like the US or Europe?

This is the core question to which those of Naturalist and Realist inclinations (eg the majority of philosophers, scientists and engineers) have in recent times often turned to Historical Materialism for an answer:

In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness... It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.

... see A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859) by somebody or other. Basically the static materialism of Feuerbach with the addition of dynamical evolution driven by the conflicts mentioned in the OP.

2 hours ago, exchemist said:

That being so, there will always be a tail of the population distribution curve that suffers hardship.

2 hours ago, studiot said:

I would just like to add that some rough sleepers in the UK choose to avoid accommodation available to them.

4 hours ago, Markus Hanke said:

Even then, there's always going to be a small number who fail to manage themselves regardless.

Thin end of the wedge. Not necessarily my own personal view of your understandable reservations, but the orthodox response in certain circles would be:

Your very ideas are but the outgrowth of conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property, just as your jurisprudence is but the will of your class, made into law for all, a will whose essential character and direction are determined by the economic conditions of the existence of your class.

... just a discussion point, you understand 🙂

PS. Not sure where monks fit in such a critique these days. 😉

PPS. I'm also well aware that that last quote could also be levelled at myself.

Edited 8 hours ago8 hr by sethoflagos

Basic human nature is to be selfish to some degree and to have some fear of things that are different (again, to some degree), i.e. a tribalistic attitude. Depending on where you are on that scale you will be more or less altruistic, and in any case, many are more likely to help someone they know rather than a complete stranger, and more likely to help in the case of a disaster rather than the mundane problems like poverty and hunger.

It doesn’t help that there are those who exploit our emotions to try and paint people as deserving to be poor (they’re lazy) or not worthy of help (they’re minorities - you’re better than them)

Human nature.

If you consider the situation in our own particular countries, the situation applies to 'a small number who fail to manage themselves regardless', as we live in fairly affluent societies.
Our ancestors, if they wanted to live apart from their tribe, and do whatever they wanted, ran the risk of being killed by a pack of wolves, or freezing outside of the cave. It is a modern notion that we should be able to do whatever we want, while still being afforded society's protection; sometimes actually demanding it.
If shelters and food are available, should you be forced to accept it, or sleep outside in freezing weather ?

There is also the situation, mostly do to wealth inequality, where a percentage of the population, in our countries, does not see the benefit of our economies, as most of the profits go to obscenely rich individuals or large corporations. This is not as much a moral issue like the previous, but has some systemic element.
If we tax rich people and corporations much higher and they go 'off-shore', are we prepared to have more social services, but less jobs ?
This same issue is also evident on a global scale, where our desire for cheap goods, causes corporations to move production to countries where they can take advantage of cheap labor, and steal their resources. So while we provide to their economies in the form of employment, a lot of the profits are funneled back to the large corporations' shareholders.
Are we providing employment opportunities, or simply taking advantage of cheap, sometimes child, labor ?

There are also the cases of impoverished countries where we used to send 'aid' ( yes, I'm looking at you America ), but their rulers use that 'aid' to fund weapon purchases, to control their population, and keep them ignorant.
If we cut off aid maybe the people rise up and overthrow their dictators, but millions die; is it worth it ?

These, and others I haven't mentioned, are all different issues, and are getting worse, not better.
they require differing mitigation approaches, but because of human nature, these issues will never be eradicated; they don't even seem to be improving.

2 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

This is the core question to which those of Naturalist and Realist inclinations (eg the majority of philosophers, scientists and engineers) have in recent times often turned to Historical Materialism for an answer:

... see A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859) by somebody or other. Basically the static materialism of Feuerbach with the addition of dynamical evolution driven by the conflicts mentioned in the OP.

Thin end of the wedge. Not necessarily my own personal view of your understandable reservations, but the orthodox response in certain circles would be:

... just a discussion point, you understand 🙂

PS. Not sure where monks fit in such a critique these days. 😉

PPS. I'm also well aware that that last quote could also be levelled at myself.

The passage you quote seems to think it makes a valid point merely by labelling those it wishes to attack as "bourgeois". But it does not address the key point, which is that human beings will always have a tendency to look after themselves first, and this limits how much altruistic behaviour can be expected. That applies to any peasant or factory worker, just as much as to a "bourgeois" gentleman. (What is particularly poisonous in that passage is the insinuation that even the law is merely the will of the middle class. That is both preposterous and dangerous.)

2 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

(1859) by somebody or other...

Chuckle.

Some thought provoking posts all round.

Greed, power seeking, and tribalism seem to be strong currents in the hominin brain. Mankind seems to be a nonstop war between the altruism/sharing/compassion pole and the greed/power/tribal pole. Ideologies, economics, techs, and religions all can serve as amplification mechanisms at either pole, though historically (see "somebody or other" et al) they tend to serve to the bad one more, given that power tends to hoover up as much of the memetic systems as possible and co-opt them into systems of crowd control.

5 minutes ago, exchemist said:

(What is particularly poisonous in that passage is the insinuation that even the law is merely the will of the middle class. That is both preposterous and dangerous.)

In the time since it was written, both social demographics and the labels attached to them have changed significantly. Marx's terminology is based broadly on the following:

Key Marxist Terms in German

• Die Bourgeoisie: Refers directly to the capitalist class that owns the means of production.

• Der Bourgeois: Identifies an individual member of this capitalist class.

• Das Besitzbürgertum: Emphasizes the ownership of property and wealth as the defining class feature.

• Die Kapitalistenklasse: Serves as a common Marxist synonym meaning "the capitalist class."

  Contrast with the Working Class in Marxist theory, this class is always contrasted with das Proletariat (the working class) or die Arbeiterklasse (the class that must sell its labor to survive).

The analysis does not include what we now call the middle class, and was written long before the days of universal adult suffrage.

Please don't take it personally: people like us were few and far between in those days, and therefore scarcely merit a footnote.

1 hour ago, sethoflagos said:

In the time since it was written, both social demographics and the labels attached to them have changed significantly. Marx's terminology is based broadly on the following:

The analysis does not include what we now call the middle class, and was written long before the days of universal adult suffrage.

Please don't take it personally: people like us were few and far between in those days, and therefore scarcely merit a footnote.

There was a middle class in the Victorian era. But certainly, most working class people at that time could not be considered “bourgeois”. Whereas now, to a very large extent in western societies, they can, this being thanks to the mixed economy approach that governments found themselves following as the c.20th developed.

The Marxist analysis does not hold and did not in the 1970s, when I used to come across such nonsense at university.🙄

Addendum: on reflection, I should flesh the above out a bit.

Both classical Marxism, and most modern interpretations place the 'Profession and Managerial Class' (PMC) as an integral structural part of the Proletariat, albeit a somewhat privileged one. This, and their frequent placing as intermediaries between Capital and Labour makes them somewhat fickle allies.

It suits the likes of Musk & Co to redefine the term 'Bourgeois' to include the PMC in order to encourage them to support their team by making Marxist theory appear hostile towards them.

Also, whilst the hypocrisy of Musk & Co denigrating the needy as greedy would be obvious to all, encouraging the PMC and less needy members of the Proletariat to do so too is clearly a useful tool of divide and rule.

I notice that while many here have repeated this slur, no one has suggested the possibility that some in poverty may decline assistance out of pride or shame. One wonders why.

19 minutes ago, exchemist said:

The Marxist analysis does not hold and did not in the 1970s, when I used to come across such nonsense at university.🙄

I know we have different political and religious views. I will attempt to treat yours with greater respect than you do mine.

Appreciate all of the responses, definitely good ones and given some thought. IMO one of the biggest reasons every person on the planet doesn't have a minimum standard of living is because actual solutions, aside from apparently not being easy, are so frequently not discussed in reasonable terms. In virtually any other forum, every proposal I am aware of would immediately be dismissed as the boogieman (communism, socialism, fascism etc whatever the favorite something to hate is) rather than actually discussing the effects of any specific policy proposals. Combine that with widespread ignorance of how other people live and the capabilities of modern technology and we have the current status quo.

I like the idea of Universal Basic Income but wonder if it can ever be enough to cover the cost of living in a system where seemingly the more successful at price gouging you are, the higher your status in society. I don't think people not working is that great an issue because few want to live a minimal existence. Almost everyone Ikes eating out on occasion, drinking beer or soda, and going on vacations. What I think will happen, is a lot of menial jobs will either pay substantially more, taken over by AI or decided they didn't really have to be done after all. The problem I see with it for the worst off of citizens, is that you are in many cases giving money to people who have shown they can't manage their own affairs and saying "here, go manage you own affairs". However, it might be made to work if one has to give up their UBI to live in government housing with cafeterias, libraries, vocational training, medical and psychological care. The specifics of all that could run into a very long post but the goal should be to get such people back (or up) to being contributing members of society where they can be on their own and once again collect UBI.

33 minutes ago, sethoflagos said:

no one has suggested the possibility that some in poverty may decline assistance out of pride or shame.

I believe that is covered by "crazies who will want to live in a tent or refuse health care" in the OP, even if the specific cause(s) of that craziness is not specified.

56 minutes ago, sethoflagos said:

Addendum: on reflection, I should flesh the above out a bit.

Both classical Marxism, and most modern interpretations place the 'Profession and Managerial Class' (PMC) as an integral structural part of the Proletariat, albeit a somewhat privileged one. This, and their frequent placing as intermediaries between Capital and Labour makes them somewhat fickle allies.

It suits the likes of Musk & Co to redefine the term 'Bourgeois' to include the PMC in order to encourage them to support their team by making Marxist theory appear hostile towards them.

Also, whilst the hypocrisy of Musk & Co denigrating the needy as greedy would be obvious to all, encouraging the PMC and less needy members of the Proletariat to do so too is clearly a useful tool of divide and rule.

I notice that while many here have repeated this slur, no one has suggested the possibility that some in poverty may decline assistance out of pride or shame. One wonders why.

I know we have different political and religious views. I will attempt to treat yours with greater respect than you do mine.

What slur?

2 minutes ago, exchemist said:

What slur?

That some significant percentage of the most needy in society are greedy/feckless/lazy etc or otherwise undeserving of sympathy.

Others might see this as victim blaming.

36 minutes ago, sethoflagos said:

That some significant percentage of the most needy in society are greedy/feckless/lazy etc or otherwise undeserving of sympathy.

Others might see this as victim blaming.

As far as I can see, nobody on this thread has suggested any such thing.

6 hours ago, MigL said:

If we tax rich people and corporations much higher and they go 'off-shore', are we prepared to have more social services, but less jobs ?

They threaten this, but rarely follow through. In the US, at least, states/regions that have started taxing the rich have not seen the threatened mass exodus. There are reasons the rich live/do business where they do separate from taxes.

2 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

That some significant percentage of the most needy in society are greedy/feckless/lazy etc or otherwise undeserving of sympathy.

Others might see this as victim blaming.

I mentioned this but if this in response to my post, the mention was only as a recognition that this happens and not an endorsement.

16 hours ago, npts2020 said:

religions or philosophical systems that claim (and in some cases, demand) that helping your fellow beings is one of the highest "goods".

I think religion tries to get people to help others, often in spite of themselves. It may be that certain proponents of the various religions recognized that society would be better off as a result and that this runs against the natural instincts of many.

1 hour ago, exchemist said:

As far as I can see, nobody on this thread has suggested any such thing.

Not in so many words, but I gave three examples earlier that I perceive to be 'dog-whistles' of the same general idea with varying degrees of sanitisation. Whether you agree with my perception or not, it has been part of the reactionaries' standard playbook for centuries. As @swansont noted:

6 hours ago, swansont said:

It doesn’t help that there are those who exploit our emotions to try and paint people as deserving to be poor (they’re lazy) or not worthy of help (they’re minorities - you’re better than them)

It saddens me that this is the knee-jerk initial reaction of so many. Not that it's an untruth particularly. But rather that it comes first: before any hint of mitigating circumstances such as mental or physical disability; before any mention of regional economic decline; before anything that may hint at there being any nobility hidden in that suffering. Just like a Telegraph or Daily Mail editorial. (Not that I've read either for many, many years).

Simulpost with @swansont : yes, I took your intent as positive and constructive.

6 minutes ago, sethoflagos said:

I gave three examples earlier that I perceive to be 'dog-whistles' of the same general idea with varying degrees of sanitisation.

The you clearly did not read what I said correctly.

10 hours ago, studiot said:

Agreed.

And yours is a good answer +1.

I would just like to add that some rough sleepers in the UK choose to avoid accommodation available to them.