There’s a little bit more nuance than that isn’t there? You can provide these things, but we still need to produce things right? Because we haven’t yet reached full automation. So the question is if we provide those things and a significant part of the population decide that they are happy with the minimum and thus they don’t want to work, and we start having massive labor shortages such that the goods needed to sustain the economy cannot be produced, what do we do? Well the only solution at that point is to make labor mandatory, and forced if the individual is noncompliant. Which is why the labor market as it exists is seen as the lesser evil. This is a bit of an oversimplification because I’m not looking to write an essay here but that covers the gist of why a liberal may oppose full on socialism.
For me, the imperative is achieving that automation. Only then is full socialism viable.
We don't need to reach full automation. We throw away half the food we produce right now, there is more empty housing having been bought up for speculation than there are people in the US or Canada. The problem is with the economic system that fails to distribute according to need. The solution is to ensure that workers are the primary beneficiaries of their own labour as opposed to the oligarchs who own capital.
There’s a little bit more nuance than that isn’t there? You can provide these things, but we still need to produce things right? Because we haven’t yet reached full automation. So the question is if we provide those things and a significant part of the population decide that they are happy with the minimum and thus they don’t want to work, and we start having massive labor shortages such that the goods needed to sustain the economy cannot be produced, what do we do? Well the only solution at that point is to make labor mandatory, and forced if the individual is noncompliant. Which is why the labor market as it exists is seen as the lesser evil. This is a bit of an oversimplification because I’m not looking to write an essay here but that covers the gist of why a liberal may oppose full on socialism.
For me, the imperative is achieving that automation. Only then is full socialism viable.
We don't need to reach full automation. We throw away half the food we produce right now, there is more empty housing having been bought up for speculation than there are people in the US or Canada. The problem is with the economic system that fails to distribute according to need. The solution is to ensure that workers are the primary beneficiaries of their own labour as opposed to the oligarchs who own capital.