Controlling your own wealth as a basic human right

Re:Controlling your own wealth as a basic human right by xyzzy123 on Wednesday January 25, 2017 @06:38AM (#13480577)

This functionally exists in nz, the uk, australia, where you can claim welfare benefits indefinitely as long as you demonstrate to the system that you're looking for work. (Probably a lot of other places but I don't have direct experience of those). You don't actually have to be really looking of course, you just need to satisfy the clerk at the dole office.

The fundamentals of social structure are so close to the U.S that you have to squint a bit to see the differences.

Yeah it gets abused and it's pretty hard to live on it, but the alternative (as far as a slim moral majority tends to vote) is worse.

Yes, taxes are a bit higher. It's not the end of the world.

Still got problems with homelessness, because that's a hard problem. You can live off benefits but you need to be basically functional to do it.

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Re:Controlling your own wealth as a basic human right by kagamine on Wednesday January 25, 2017 @09:29AM (#13481561)

Watch a few episodes of the UK Who Do You Think You Are tv show and what comes across in many of these people's ancestral stories is that some people had it all (and it didn't always work out for them), women had no right to own a damn thing, and that many, many people suffered and died because there was no welfare state in Europe pre WWII. The lives of ordinary people were often awful and governed by pure chance. The welfare state is one of the greatest achievements of human-kind.

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