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A perfect visualisation of a wasteful system
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2023
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A Boring Dystopia
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You're not using your bed right now. Are you letting a homeless person sleep in it?
That's not a contradiction. Your, my, and everyone's bed is for sleeping in. The beds in that store are for accumulation of wealth. This displays the harsh efficiencies of capitalism, because the people in the most need for a bed cannot afford to have one.
I belive the beds in a store that sells beds are either to be sold or to help you choose a bed. They are not "fuck you, see how many beds i have" beds
It'll probably be sold at a discount too since it was for display
To that homeless person, yes that's exactly what a mattress store is.
Especially because unless you've solved the limited resources problem, then even in a utopia you're still going to have to have something like money, and therefore you will still have things that some people have that other people don't have.
What essential resources are so limited that we can't provide them to everyone based on need?
Define 'limited.' Because limits include trained manpower, right? There's only a certain amount of that. Our ability to provide certain drugs for everyone who might need them are limited by the number of people trained to make them. This is true of virtually any industry. It is as limited as the number of people who can make it usable. And that is usually not an 'anyone can do this' issue.
Labor of any stripe is abundant. In an economy that doesn't prioritize profit, people would be able to pursue specialized jobs that they want to contribute towards. For example, after the modernization of the USSR, they had the most doctors of any country in the world and healthcare was made accessible for millions of people. Our growth as a society is limited by the amount of cooperative labor we have available, but it's not a limited resource.
In contrast, capitalism is reliant on a reserve pool of labor to keep wages down. If someone remains in the reserves for too long, they become homeless because every aspect of life has been commodified.
I'm not talking about labor, I'm talking about specialized labor. Which is limited not just to numbers but to numbers willing to be trained in that field.
Which specialized labor do you think would be in short supply in a non-market economy?
I gave a specific example already.
Which things? Because all historical sources show that the bottom 10% had all the bare necessities for life. They didn't have luxury apartments, but they had a roof. They weren't eating steak every night, but they had more caloric input and healthier diets than US citizens.
Hit me
...selling people beds so they have beds to sleep in. Beds that aren't riddled with bugs thanks to the store not being a homeless shelter.
You're assuming selling beds is the only method to distribute them. That's simply untrue.
Best method we have found so far. If you want cookie cutter efficient ass state made beds you can move off to the.... Well, every state who has tried has collapsed so you're shit out of luck.
You mean like the still-existing and highly complex gift economies of natives all across the globe that have no homelessness?
Move there then.
So beds in the store are for accumulation of wealth but then when someone buys them they're for sleeping in? Deep
I do understand the sentiment but the thing is a lot of homelessness isn't because people don't have money not exactly. They may have support systems that they can make use of but if they have other problems they may not be inclined to use those support systems.
You can't just blame capitalism for homelessness, not exclusively.
Which systems do you have in mind? Because homeless shelters are not a solution to homelessness.
But mattress stores are?
Where did you extrapolate that from?
You kinda can. Capitalism provides no incentive to help this man (actually, it provides a disincentive because the time and/or money needed to help this man could be spent on more profitable endeavors). The support structures that may exist are not capitalistic, are disincentived, and obviously not adequate.
Personally I blame it for the bulk of it in my country. We have a massive housing crisis caused by housing unafordability.
The middle class here mainly invest in rentals (not stockmarket) and then use them as AirBnBs that sit empty half the time.
Meanwhile whole families are living in garages or worse, cars. People who are sane and ordinary and work are living in substandard shitholes.
Who are the people in most need for a bed? Isn't that need relatively equal? I mean, I guess when I was younger I didn't really need one, but now I'm a wreck without one. I know some guys with copd that only sleep in chairs, so maybe their need is on low end.
The people without beds, followed by the people that need to replace their beds, followed by people that want to receive a bed for any other reason.
agreed, it's pretty funny that someone thought that was a contradictory statement
Infantilize me all you want, that doesn't change the fact that I'm college educated and in my late 20s. Explain to me why we can't distribute beds to people based on need. If we can, then please explain why we have to have homeless people.
Is there like an Uber for this?
Don't give Airbnb ideas
Grindr is uber for warm, lubricated holes.