Consumer spending comprises 68% of GDP, but instead of getting some stability in exchange for driving the largest economy on the planet (by nominal GDP), we have to pay extra taxes on the already-taxed money that we have just for the privilege of buying our own necessities.
As far as who does the shitty labor jobs, they would need to incentivize that work to make it desirable for people, instead of just expecting someone to need to do it to not die. We are also at a point where a lot of those jobs could be done by machines.
The idea that we need to ensure that a large enough group is struggling enough to work unsavory jobs is a predatory mindset.
If less people want to work a certain job for any reason, that means that the demand is greater than the supply. In that scenario, the traditional way to get people to work those jobs is to offer more money or other compensation.
Just because people have some food, clothing and shelter does not mean that they won't want better food, better clothing or better shelter.
You’ve missed an entire half of the question.
I would love to live in the Star Trek Utopia but you have only attacked my questions as predatory without addressing the whole foundation that is being proposed for this society. People will always be people and there will always be a need for someone to do an undesirable job. When all other jobs are out-competed for, that still leaves someone to either do the undesirable job or just accept basic minimums. The undesirable jobs might change, but the inequality will still be there.
I don’t think they intentionally excluded healthcare or comfortable living from essential needs. Yes the threshold for essential is fuzzy, but it’s a pretty damn low bar that isn’t being met for many people (in the US at least), but could be at a relatively low cost.
Non-basic needs: car ownership, suburban/rural living, living in areas with extreme temperature or acute water supply issues, luxury clothing/electronics/etc.
With regards to the garbage collection example (although they may not apply to all low level jobs): 1. I think wages can only inflate so far before being overwhelmed by employment supply
2. Raising wages for these jobs helps return dignity and respect to them within the community
3. Because labor cost is cheap/suppressed, we have nonoptimal solutions to things like trash collection and I think there are ways to reduce the labor required.
4. I understand people operate for themselves and don’t care for others, but I believe if society supports people, they will be better at returning the favor but reducing things like littering and dumping.
And that will raise the cost of all services and goods, including the cost of having someone's basic needs met. Then we're back to square one, now what?
However, I don't think that's currently the case.
The current cost of things is now predominantly driven by how much could be charged. I see it all the time: "the value of something is determined by the maximum price that the market is willing to pay".
So if the price is based on the maximum they could charge, then they won't be able to raise the prices because they will lose all their customers. They will have to find a more efficient business model.
The place where most cuts should happen is at the top of the pay scale. There is absolutely no good reason that the person who owns the company that picks up my garbage should be making tens or hundreds of millions of dollars every year.
But regardless of how they streamline their business models to allow for maximum profitability, one thing is certain...
If we need to employ systemic, predatory behavior that forces people to take unsavory jobs to survive then we are purposefully misunderstanding what a free market really is.
The most realistic version seems to be Universal Basic Income. Realistic because it’s so simple to implement cf. any system that has to evaluate who is “eligible” and what each person “needs”.
There’s still a debate to be had about how much the UBI should be. Linking it to some linear combination of a food price index and a housing price index seems like a good alternative.
> Finally, who drives garbage trucks, picks food in hot fields, delivers goods by driving all night, etc when they have all of their basic needs met for free?
“Basic needs” could mean many things. Many people arguing for UBI just want to give everyone enough money to afford to rent a small moldy basement and eat something basic for dinner every day. I would assume most people want something more out of life.
Someone's children - which is why the scramble for elite education and employment is so brutal as well.
But too bad apparently, how dare people who aren't legally allowed to be anywhere, be somewhere.
In nature, every individual has to fight for survival. The strong eat the weak, there is no justice, only a fight to survive.
Civilized society, in my opinion at least, aspires to be something else, something more. There should be justice. We should not impose on the rights of others without due cause.
Currently, as your question points out, we rely on keeping people desperate enough to do uncomfortable jobs for little pay in order to survive. Our economic polices in the U.S. deliberately keep some percentage of the population desperate, whether that's targeting a 4% unemployment rate, keeping a rock bottom minimum wage, trade policy, healthcare policy, I could go on all day.
What if society didn't function this way? What if the wealth that already exists were distributed in a way that people were not desperate just to survive? One mechanism might be a UBI that was sufficient for bare-minimum housing and food costs. Then we'd have to pay people enough that it was worth their time to do those jobs. Goods and services, especially those currently underpaid, would be more expensive. But the people working those jobs would have a lot more income, which would be spent and re-injected into the economy, probably the local economy. I believe that would tend to bubble up the chain - Why should I deal with all the stress of project deadlines if I could check groceries for a similar paycheck? Things would cost more, but we would also be paid more.
Ultimately I think the goal would be a more equitable distribution of wealth. The counter-argument I usually see is that wealthy individuals have created the wealth they have, and have a right to it. I would disagree, pointing to the same policies above that depress wages and encourage people to take poorly paying jobs.
On the other hand no Austrian citizen had to worry about starving, affording higher education, landing on the streets, getting medical care, etc. in a long long long(!) while.