Compensation is a representation of bargaining power. If anything, compensation for labor has an inverse relationship with actual value. Teachers get paid little despite educating future generations, sanitation workers contribute more to the public health than doctors but make peanuts, and stay-at-home parents nurture children and are paid nothing at all. Bargaining power is not value of labor.

We are paid what can demand and not a penny more irrespective of our labor's actual value.

> compensation for labor has an inverse relationship with actual value.

Value is what people are willing to freely pay for it. Any other definition of it is subjective and fairly useless.

You’re talking about price. Price is not value.

The value of something is price where the supply & demand curves cost.

> It is a representation of the value of the labor of that human.

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.

> 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.

If "plenty of people" can be organized to consent to giving up money, maybe we can organize some kind of centralized method to collect funds and distribute resources to those in need. We can probably set up something through the government for this. Come to think of it, shipping food around is a lot harder than just giving money to them to go buy their own. Why don't we make it so the government hands out money to everyone who needs it, so that we can coordinate the good deeds of many to serve the needs of many more?

I hope you see where I'm going with this.

It's called the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, United Way, Wounded Warriors, Shriner's Hospital, etc., etc. No government needed.

"Plenty of people will voluntarily give food to a hungry person."

Not enough, with the amount of hunger that's present in the richest country in the world.

I encourage you to give generously to your local food bank. You'll be doing the right thing.

Charity has never adequately addressed social problems in America.

signed, a surfer

I'm not aware of any social problem that has been adequately resolved by any organization, government or private. There's always someone who thinks it's not good enough.

Certainly UBI isn't going to do it, either.

There are 12 US cities that have achieved "functional zero" homelessness -- no chronic homelessness and no homeless vets.

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?

> 500 people don't have permanent housing of their own.

I.e. it's inadequate.

You said: "I'm not aware of any social problem that has been adequately resolved by any organization, government or private. There's always someone who thinks it's not good enough."

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.