Money is a recent invention, and economies have flourished without it. Money facilitates trade, increases liquidity, and reduces friction in transactions.
> This fetishism with "work" as a proxy for the value of the human life which performs the work
It is not a proxy for the value of a human life. It is a representation of the value of the labor of that human.
Americans are very generous in voluntarily giving to charities.
We are paid what can demand and not a penny more irrespective of our labor's actual value.
Value is what people are willing to freely pay for it. Any other definition of it is subjective and fairly useless.
By withholding economic power until someone provides "labor" as defined by the state, and leaving them embedded in an economy which requires money to survive, you are directly tying the value of the human life to the value of their labor.
> giving to charities
Interesting, probably has a lot to do with the low taxes and high amount of disposable income.
A young lady I used to know was the kindest person I ever met. She didn't have much, but would donate a few dollars to every charity that called. They had her number, and called her all the time.
She was the real deal, not one of those people who are only generous with someone else's money.
> you are directly tying the value of the human life to the value of their labor.
Oh baloney. Plenty of people will voluntarily give food to a hungry person.
I hope you see where I'm going with this.
Not enough, with the amount of hunger that's present in the richest country in the world.
signed, a surfer
Certainly UBI isn't going to do it, either.
The country of Finland has done the same, with a plan to reach absolute zero (nobody staying temporarily with friends or relatives) by 2022. Right now, over there, with 5.5 million people, 500 people don't have permanent housing of their own.
Does that count?
I.e. it's inadequate.
If you think that 500 people out of 5.5 million -- who aren't sleeping on the street, but have access to shelter and only lack their own permanent housing, with a plan to house them in the next two years -- is "inadequate," that's a you problem, not a "no social problem has adequately been resolved by any organization" problem.
Try surfing, man. It might relax you.
This fetishism with "work" as a proxy for the value of the human life which performs the work is a very American concept with corollaries in only a couple other countries. This is not the norm and certainly not a healthy way to look at labor and the economy.