It's notable that neither of these factors that had been keeping homelessness rates low were the result of a hands-off free market, but instead the product of social safety nets that, when removed, simply didn't catch people.
I'm not sure if it's deliberate on your part, but there are also more categories to homelessness than crazy and indolent. A significant portion simply "fall on hard times". Take this article [0] about the causes of homelessness in Seattle. Between eviction & loss of job, about 35% of homeless are find themselves there through economic issues. The other causes are worth reviewing as well. Crazy & Lazy simply don't cover it.
[0]https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/why-are-p...
See also the practice of "Enclosure" for an additional example.
In addition, being a peasant often had some properties of slavery: no freedom of mobility or choice and sometimes lack of pay, with the express approval of the local lord required for many things. See the Revolt of 1381.
The Lord-Peasant relationship is really not a positive example of preventing homelessness, but either way, let's face it: It was the Government supporting those people. Arguing from the historic example of feudalism as a method that prevented homelessness would mean you're arguing that the government should be directly supporting the homeless.
2. I’m not arguing that feudalism was good. I’m arguing that homelessness is a historically embedded phenomenon, and was essentially non-existent in pre-modern times and then it became markedly more prevalent in the last 40 years. I’m not sure about all the causes of or solutions to homelessness, but I do think if it were the priority, homelessness could be resolved at the price of imposing some other trade off problems (which might be worse on net).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_Health_Systems_Act_of_1...
The thing is, it's still a lot better than the mid-century horror stories of institutions; electrotherapy, lobotomy, people being drugged into a permanent fugue state, sexual abuse, etc. Those concerns are what drove these changes to the system.
ECT[1] (Electroshock Therapy) has an extremely bad rap (One Flew over the Cukoo's Nest didn't help), but there's quite an important use for it in modern psychiatry.
Notably severe depression, where normal meds don't help, or where there's an urgency to do something immediately (psychiatric meds usually take a few weeks to work and finding the right medication and dosage can be very difficult) ECT may be the last viable option for a patient.
Nowadays an anesthetic is applied before the treatment and (except in very rare cases) informed consent by the patient is required.
There's no doubt that it was massively abused in the past (and let's not even get started on lobotomy) and I'm pretty sure it's still abused in countries run by totalitarian regimes.
But it can be really the last hope for a patient with severe depression, despite the fact that it still has a very bad image.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroconvulsive_therapy
E: clarifications
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Connor_v._Donaldson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addington_v._Texas
If a mentally ill person doesn’t want to stay in a mental institution, authorities basically have to wait until they cause significant harm to be classified as dangerous before being able to do anything.
Instead of trying to decide who is worthy of your dollar, perhaps consider what that dollar is worth to you vs. what it is worth to them.
If you give them a dollar and it's spent on something you don't approve of or you think they are not deserving that on them. If you don't give them anything because you assume they might not be worthy, that's on you.
If good deeds (or even neutral deeds) are scrutinized and discouraged, there will be no end of other, theoretical good deeds that might have been done, and no simple good deed will be done.
How do you define scammer? If a person is homeless, but holds up a gas can with a sign that says "ran out of gas please help!" then they're lying about why they need the money, but they aren't scamming in terms of not actually being homeless.
What about junkies too-- they still need to eat. Absent enough money to do both, they might choose just to get high, deteriorate more, have even less chance of recovery.
There's no easy litmus test here. No easy way to ensure the money you give is going to be used in the best possible way to improve someone's life.
As for junkies - homeless junkies get hungry too.
So I reject your ad hominem attack. Your vein of typical sharp-tongued HN cynicism is very tedious.
Moreover, your remark has the arrogance of assuming all consequences of action are knowable. They are not, but you will need to learn that yourself.
Why even reply to the thread if you're going to be so stubborn on your position?
Even if they are going to spend it on drugs they wont tell you so you are forcing them to degrade themselves either way by lying or by proving they aren't going to spend it on drugs.
Just say no if you think they are going to blow it on drugs or say yes without pretending their drug habit is the result of you giving a buck on a particular corner.
I've given money to a homeless person asking for money for a cab to the hospital. They had a visibly and badly injured hand. After I gave them the money they stopped me from calling a cab from my phone, and (upon perceiving me as having left), pocketed the cash and laughed. They never went anywhere and just hung out.
I've had a friend offer a stack of jeans to a homeless person asking for pants, only to have them tossed all over the ground right in front of my friend. They only took their favorite pair.
I've taken someone desperate for food into a convenience store to pick out a meal, only to be run out by the store owner.
This makes it all the sweeter when, despite the insults, scammers, and jerks, you manage to actually help someone. Learn to see through the initial presentation.
I imagine that this isn't the norm, though.
> I've given money to a homeless person asking for money for a cab to the hospital. They had a visibly and badly injured hand. After I gave them the money they stopped me from calling a cab from my phone, and (upon perceiving me as having left), pocketed the cash and laughed. They never went anywhere and just hung out.
How much do hospitals cost where you live? I'm not saying that this person wasn't an asshole, but for many people, they see no point going to the hospital if it's going to leave them in the red.
> I've had a friend offer a stack of jeans to a homeless person asking for pants, only to have them tossed all over the ground right in front of my friend. They only took their favorite pair.
What were they going to do with the others? Where do you think they could store them in a place they wouldn't get mouldy, wet, damaged, etc.?
> I've taken someone desperate for food into a convenience store to pick out a meal, only to be run out by the store owner.
Why is this the fault of the homeless person?
This happens even in countries with universal healthcare - the "needing money for a cab to get to the hospital" is a well known scam; the dedicated ones learn how to keep a wound open and bleeding constantly. (There was a notorious one near where I live, who managed to keep a bone exposed, allegedly - never seen him, so can't comment further on that).
In London, at least, my understanding is that most homelessness is a mental health issue; support is available, but not necessarily wanted.
In most places in the UK, mental health support takes about 3 years to put you through the waiting list (Niche problems like for example trans healthcare are even worse, with the current estimated waiting list from approaching a doctor to receiving medical treatment from a GIC being 7+ years in some places of England), and I've know people who have had trouble with being dropped off the list when being transferred from the youth mental health support to the adult mental health support. Also, it still relies on you being in a fiscally and materially stable position where you can address these problems safely and from a place where you are not literally worrying about your ability to live to tomorrow, which for a lot of people who do not have active housing, is not viable.
Ah, I can't believe I managed to put this down wrong.
There are two required appointments from a GIC: First a psychiatric assessment from a therapist, Second an appointment with an endocrinologist. The timeline until the first appointment is approximately 3 - 7 years, and then you need to wait up to 2 years (At least, I've heard word of people waiting that long) for the endocrinology appointment, and then finally, you will receive treatment.
Agree. This is an anecdote to frame my point, not a statistical claim.
> How much do hospitals cost where you live?
Unjustifiably, prohibitively expensive. They were asking for money specifically to go to the hospital.
> What were they going to do with the others?
Not immediately tossing the clothes into the dirt in front of my friend, for one. My friend spent time sorting and folding the clothes before coming back outside to the homeless man waiting on the porch. My point is this doesn't really change the ethics.
> Why is this the fault of the homeless person? It isn't, and I did not intend to have my post interpreted in this way.
All that is beside my point presented at the end of my post, which was elided from your response.
Let me restate my position. If I give a dollar to a homeless person, they may blow it on destructive behavior. Or maybe they led me to falsely believe they needed the help. Point is, that does not excuse not helping at all.
Begging on the streets is unsafe for the homeless and for the public - giving that way promotes the activity. It's generally much better to give to public service organizations that can coordinate broader care.
That said, if you feel you should give to someone, do it.
(And I don't think anyone with even introductory economics knowledge thinks free markets solve everything.)
You are killing me, too funny! I also have given money to people, not knowing how they would use it. I figure if there is a chance it will do them good, who am I to say how they use the gift
But I still avoid slave labor. The workers need to be free to leave for a better option if there is one.
I mean, I think it's safe to assume that Apple isn't the Big Bad here in terms of overseas labor practices: It seems highly likely that a very large % of technological devices around me involved either 1) child labor 2) some form of forced labor 3) unsafe labor conditions 4) starvation wages 5) 14 hour workdays 7 days a week
It goes far beyond electronics too: I just grabbed one of my kid's favorite little plush puppy: made in China. It seems reasonable to doubt the quality of the work conditions in the factory it came from, but I just don't know.
I think about something like "Organic Food" and there are at least labelling requirements for things like that. People do, with some effort, manage to eat completely organic, even if there are some problems with labelling consistency.
There's nothing equivalent for "no kid/slave labor/fair wages" etc. You could buy only things made in the US, or other countries with fair labor practices, but the supply chains for components & materials to build those things are will be opaque & frequently have roots into the labor practices you want to avoid.
I'm not saying you shouldn't try to avoid products like that: If possible for a given product? Sure, go for it. But otherwise I'm saying that is seems like a virtually impossible task to accomplish
In a free market, the first entrepreneur to get a loan from the bank to build up some of the infrastructure would beat all the public collectives - they could just build up, sell at a loss until the local collective gives up, and jack up prices as most users switch to their offering. Rinse and repeat, and with every iteration it only gets easier - because wealth and power compound, much like interest in the bank.
A free market structurally favors larger companies. Unlike what some people say, government intervention is neither necessary nor sufficient to enable monopolies - all that's required is the positive feedback loop on capital. The more you have, the easier it is to get more.
In a free market you can still have the government as a market participant of last resort. You don't have to mess with the market itself. If only one company is needed to serve the entire market there is no reason for the government to not own a large share in it and steer it. The threat of government control should be a good incentive for companies to not grow too large relative to their competitors.
But lets take a closer look at the Comcast subsidy. Why is that not a solution based on the free market? It's because there is no reason for Comcast to actually provide the value it promised. It's a monopoly and if there must be a monopoly then it should be in control of the government. Did the government become an investor in Comcast and receive voting shares to steer the company on the right path? No? You just donated money to the owners of that business. Don't expect anything in return.
* Never give, only sell.
* Produce in accordance to the interests of those with money, not people in general or those with need.
* Everything, and perhaps every one, can be bought for the right price.
* Debt must be repaid.
etc.
Government intervention can be fully compatible with the free market if the government acts as a market participant.
I do have to refute that idea. I'm not sure how much their opinions matter and if my time is well spent trying to change them, but they're in my life so I collect the evidence.
And, of course, some Libertarians hold both beliefs - that free markets are the moral approach AND that the create better outcomes more often than not. But other than maybe a few n00bs who just discovered Libertarianism from a pamphlet or something, almost nobody is going around claiming that free markets fix everything.
If you construe some tipping point like for example chance of existential or utilitarian failure that does justify coercion how do you differentiate between a society in which minimizing coercion is the goal and one in which whatever you construe as justifying coercion is actually the guiding principal.
I've come to see "free markets" as the economic fabric on top of which we can build structures to support one another. For example we could form large healthcare collectives in a free market, as an alternative to state controlled health care (or insurance companies). I think a big factor is collective control versus minority control of the institutions that provide services like that.
As far as what a person without housing will do with the money - I'd rather offer the help than assume they don't know whats best for them. Even if they use it for drugs or alcohol as is often the source of much hand-wringing - then maybe it will help them get through the day. Of course, giving money to shelters is a good use of money too. And food banks.
Some might still call that a free market.
However lots of people misunderstand that theory and think the wealthy influencing the state is what libertarians want. I’ve not found any libertarian theoretician who advocates for that.
It's trivial to forget that their isn't much in the way of ground truth underneath society what people think of as the government not meddling much with society actually usually means leaving alone the current result of centuries of meddling if if the current distribution of tokens and things were the result of natural law and any change or redistribution is the only coercive act. If you imagine a board with certain positions privileged above others and spaces pre parceled out to certain players all the existing restrictions on players movements and actions are all coercive its just coercive in the ways that is presently expected as normal.
But I disagree that getting the government out of the way means leaving existing power structures intact. What I have learned from libertarian theory is that a whole lot of existing power structures exist (in the USA where I live) specifically because someone bribed the government in to supporting something they wanted. Take Disney continually extending copyright laws for example. Instead of getting old media in the public domain we get ever more restrictive copyright law because some corporations found it worth fighting for. Removing government in that instance would reduce existing power imbalances. So called “right to repair” laws for example provide a balance to the powers granted by government to corporations that would lock customers out of repairing their own equipment. I’ve also heard a few credible stories of instances where big corporations advocate for regulation that ends up squashing competition. Of course some kind of regulation whether from the state or by other means is necessary to avoid pollution, waste, abuse, etc.
In essence I am saying that even though there are many who call themselves libertarians who simply don’t understand the theory or advocate for its actual practice, this does not mean that libertarian theory is itself bad. I think instead that certain aspects of libertarian theory appeal to people who maybe just don’t want to pay taxes but never really learn or care about the theory behind the idea.
The "but they might spend it on drugs" argument is just an easy get out from giving some money to people who need it. Funny how no one ever argues that Wall Street bankers should be paid in food vouchers, despite the decades of history showing that they're going to spend their money on drugs.
They are not the only two options. Parent just suggested sharing your perspective without the aggressive tone and expletives.
Then for those who reject there is free drug dispensary & usage place, we talk about proper opiates like heroin, not some weak substitutes.
In our situation and location, the money isn't a solution for a beggar. Meal can be, ideally hot in the cold. Also, since we talk about Switzerland, people come from rest of Europe seasonally to beg and then go home to live off social services. Again, no reason to give money.
There's a thriving black economy of squats where you can pay a couple of pounds to share a room with 40 other people. Totally illegal, but given the choice between sleeping in the snow or in an unregistered shelter, I'd take the latter.
Was your housing status critical in that decision?
While this is not a uniquely USA thing, it is much worse in the USA: Your search terms are "Reagan mental hospital homeless" (although President Reagan doesn't actually personally carry all the blame for this)
https://www.salon.com/2013/09/29/ronald_reagans_shameful_leg...
I was shocked and disgusted to learn that my country of birth, The Netherlands, which is the 6th most prosperous country in the world[1], has this concept of "economic homelessness". This means that an individual or family has work and steady income, but are unable to afford rent due to a combination of politically created circumstances: lack of affordable housing, liberalisation of previously rent-controlled/social housing, and private rents running wild.
This isn't just for minimum wage workers, many people at the lower end of the middle class are either unable to afford current rent, or rent takes up the vast majority of income.
[1] https://www.prosperity.com/rankings?pinned=NLD&filter= [2] https://vng.nl/artikelen/economisch-daklozen-vallen-tussen-w... (in Dutch)
The homeless population here in Denver is scary.
How much Kraft cheese do you keep on hand?
Free market capitalism and social welfare are not mutually exclusive concepts.
You're awesome. I wish people like you were more prevalent in society.
Currently, and I'm not an economist so this is an armchair thing, I think two big factors are wage vs cost of living.
Minimum wage has not kept up with inflation or cost of living.
Job security has spiraled downwards, with employers preferring temporary, part-time or 0-hour/on-call contracts, or doing away with employees entirely and having temps or contractors instead (also looking at the gig economy here).
And cost of living has skyrocketed up, it was steadily increasing in the 2000's, and after recovering from the 2008 crisis they've gone up crazily. Additional factors in that are low interest rates, meaning that on the one side mortgages have record low interest rates and on the other low risk savings accounts have no interest anymore, so people are looking to invest. Given how the prices of housing have gone up because of these factors, people see buying a house as a great investment.
Anyway, all of these factors combined mean that fewer people can afford to live in a house, there's much more of the "working poor", etc etc etc.
That's wrong. The vast majority of problems with capitalism are caused by wrong policies and abuse of power. The free market is a powerful tool that can solve a lot of problems within the context of an existing system. Obviously, USA isn't known for good policies. Lots of self destructive political ideas are floating around or are already implemented.
For some reason a certain group of people gets their blood pumping once there is government intervention of any kind. For them there is always too much government intervention. Except that is the wrong mode of thinking. Government intervention is not like a soup where adding too much salt makes things worse. It's not about the quantity, it's about quality. No intervention is just as bad because the free market is a machine with no human values, you have to give it human values to obtain the desired effects.
Now here is where the weird things start to happen. What human values did Americans encode in their political system? Let's take California as an example. Homeownership for old residents at all costs, even when it hurts others and themselves. California has an extremely weird desire for pain. You introduce property taxes and then take them back by freezing them. What purpose does that serve? The tax money is gone but the psychological effect is still there. People will refuse to sell their house or move unless they absolutely must. They are forced to stay in a small home even when their life circumstances change and they end up with more or less room than they actually need. Children stay at home because they cannot afford to rent or to buy property with current tax rates. You even built a legacy system that lets children inherit their parent's property tax status. It's absurd. None of this has anything to do with the free market. None of it. The free market doesn't tell you to grab a knife and stab yourself. The government can tell you to stab yourself but it can also stop you. Again, the problem is extremely poor leadership, not the fact that leadership exists.
Do you know what a free market solution to high housing prices is? The solution is to respond to market signals. If housing is expensive then just build more housing. It's highly profitable to do so. It doesn't matter what housing you build as long as it meets demand. People hate on luxury apartments but what they don't understand is that luxury apartments are wealth traps. They aren't entirely meant to provide housing. The unoccupied luxury apartments act as a sink for excess capital to pour into. Imagine a Chinese millionaire trying to get $10 million out of China. He could spend that money on one very expensive luxury apartment and displace nobody or he could spend it on 10 apartments and displace 10 people and drive up rents. What's your pick? If you want housing for everyone then the solution is not to ban housing via rent control. That's just plain insane. The solution is for the government to enter the housing market and provide housing at cost or for a very small margin below <10%. Providing housing at cost is not the same thing as a subsidy because the profit margins in mature industries get closer and closer to 0%. Don't subsidize housing because it restricts the amount of government housing you can provide. The government as a market participant can cut out middlemen that want their own cut and thus allows easier access to housing. Serving a basic need like housing is very easy for the government to do. The demand is easy to predict. One unit of housing can provide for x people. We have y people.
Okay, so why does the government not just build more housing and let private companies build more housing? Because pain. You cannot maximize pain if you avoid harming yourself. People consider housing an investment which is just plain wrong. I'm in a 50 year old apartment and the building codes back then were just bad when it comes to electrical wiring. Why does anyone want to stay in old housing? Because it is cheap? Fine, except that goes against the idea of housing being an investment. Why would you invest into something that is losing its utility over time? If you invest into housing because of scarcity aren't you just going to create even more scarcity to further improve the value of your home? Scarce housing? Why should that even exist? Oh right. It's because commercial real estate is the only thing that actually brings in tax money. So SF has lots of commercial construction and the commutes grow longer and longer.
When you consider that there is a national shift from low skilled work to high skilled work in the US this is absolutely disgusting. People have the skills to work at a good job, but they are prevented to do so by the selfish desire of a few individuals. When times are bad and people's hometown declines they are forced to move and for a lot of them their best bet is the bay area or the rest of California. All the new good jobs are in California. When you put a brake on success in urban centers you just end up with even more pain in rural places. Everyone cries gentrification when things are good but when things are truly bad nobody gives a crap except that angry billionaire with blonde hair who got his twitter account banned.
Perhaps more perniciously, since this doctrine says that the prosperous are those blessed by God, then becoming prosperous is the main goal: the means by which that happens are irrelevant. Cheat/Lie/Con etc., but become prosperous? It must be okay, because the prosperous are blessed by God.
FTFY
Many people who are "homeless by choice" are making choices like "Do I keep living with my abusive spouse/relative or do I go sleep in my car?"
In most cases, if they had a better option than homelessness, they would be all over it in a heartbeat. They just don't happen to have that and have chosen homelessness as the lesser evil in comparison to some other major problem.
Edit:
Something I wrote, if anyone wants to read up more:
https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2019/10/when-family...
I think homelessness due to other causes-- mental health for example-- are more complex but similarly demonstrate fundamental flaws in the framework of society.
Only once was I able to give a homeless person a meal... I'd just bought my lunch, driving a few blocks away I saw someone with as sign asking for $$ for food... I go cashless, so I stopped and ran my lunch over to them. It was Chipotle, so I hope I didn't do any lasting damage.
As for giving money to homeless on the street... I don't know. I don't know if it's the right thing to do, if it will be used for food/shelter etc. or something more self-destructive. I've stopped caring about that possibility. I've decided I can't not do something that might help someone simply because it also might not help. I also figure addicts have to eat too, and absent enough money to do both, they might decide not to eat.