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Is there anywhere in the world someone can just live for free?

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Re: Is there anywhere in the world someone can just live for free?

#481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you don't think there is a market for labor? You don't think that wages, benefits and workplace conditions (heath & safety), have any effect on where people work? Do you think there are fixed wages for certain categories of jobs, like some soviet economy? Do you think that most jobs are long-term-fixed contracts at some low penalty rate, like indentured servitude? Do you think there are still company towns where p…

As I outlined, markets != capitalism. It seems you've wandered far away from my whole point. Free markets, entrepeneurialism are a part of contemporary US capitalism, but they can also exist in systems that are not capitalist. For a system to be capitalist, it requires additional features, and the most significant of these is the way the rewards of human ventures are distributed (i.e. primarily towards those who inve…

You can define capitalism however you like, but nobody can define away the thriving labor market that obviously exists in the western world - even with all the distortions and regulations. The labor market affects how rewards are shared between capital and labor. Nobody has to agree with your unique and special definition.

Re: Is there anywhere in the world someone can just live for free?

#482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

India at the time of the Buddha was favorable to wandering ascetics. People were culturally conditioned to donate alms. And, indeed, alms-seeking is required by the vinaya for monks, so they can't live in complete seclusion from society. Society today is very hostile to wandering folks. Many western monastics independent of monasteries (especially female monastics) have a hard time getting alms without a lot of organ…

India is still very favorable to wandering ascetics. A European friend of mine walked across India barefoot for a year with nothing but robe, staff, and begging bowl, as a spiritual exercise. He found this quite easy to do (indeed, he was well aware before setting off that it would be easy to do) because there is a vast infrastructure in place to support the local ascetics who do this.

Wow! Amazing to see that not much has changed in 2500 years with regard to the support of wandering ascetics. Culture can be very deeply rooted, especially in a civilization as old as India's.

Re: Is there anywhere in the world someone can just live for free?

#483
post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

then who cleans up the trash? charge you for things that you don't ordered that is not what is happening here. the state is not some foreign entity, but the elected representative will of the community. i want the trash taken care of, and so does the majority of the community. if your government does not do what your community wants then you don't live in a functioning democracy. that is a different problem alltogeth…

- if your government does not do what your community wants then you don't live in a functioning democracy. Democracy is rule of majority and make inequalities by definition. Minorities needs to accept rules that they do not agree with. It's like monopoly except it is forbidden to do competition by law. Decentralisation of taxes or financial system could solve many issues that escalate recently. - i'd like to see a sp…

those are interesting points. i think on the first one i think i am using a different definition of democracy. in short, for me democracy means something that actually works and respects the will of all people including minorities. simple rule of majority is not really democratic in my view. the flip side of that is that i do not believe that there is any country in the world today that has a functioning democracy.

in short, it looks like we both actually want something similar here. what that is needs more discussion.

my idea of democracy also has a heavy focus on decentralization. basically i believe that decisions or rules should be made at the lowest level needed for that rule to be useful.

that means, things like traffic rules should be made at a national or better even global level because it is not helpful to have different rules for that in every city. same goes for issues like polution. those are global problems. but many other problems are local, and it is better to decide those on a local level. i'd even go as far as suggesting to make every possible choice at a local level first and only escalate to a higher level if the local decisions create a conflict with neighboring localities.

so i am 100% with you on decentralization. though i don't see less laws or less taxes as a goal or as an obvious result. decentralization could lead to less laws or taxes, but it doesn't have to. personally i don't care either way. that is up to each community to work out for themselves.

i think the problem at the start of the thread was that the claim was that there should be zero taxes or zero mandated contributions of any form. and that is something i disagree with. and it appears that you are not asking for that either.

the next question would be: how would a political or electoral system look like that enables those things? whether it is called democracy or something else.

Re: Is there anywhere in the world someone can just live for free?

#484
post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- if your government does not do what your community wants then you don't live in a functioning democracy. Democracy is rule of majority and make inequalities by definition. Minorities needs to accept rules that they do not agree with. It's like monopoly except it is forbidden to do competition by law. Decentralisation of taxes or financial system could solve many issues that escalate recently. - i'd like to see a sp…

those are interesting points. i think on the first one i think i am using a different definition of democracy. in short, for me democracy means something that actually works and respects the will of all people including minorities. simple rule of majority is not really democratic in my view. the flip side of that is that i do not believe that there is any country in the world today that has a functioning democracy. i…

- i do not believe that there is any country in the world today that has a functioning democracy.

Because we are not living in ideal word. Truly functioning democracy require freedom of knowledge to have free and conscious decision in voting. Our decisions are shaped mostly by media. Which is, again, centralized. Also, if you want to be elected by people, you need to be a populist. So democratic system tend to shape peoples mind either on left or right and gather them about specific ideas. For me, it makes unnatural dividing of people to categories and instead of solving problems together, we fight each other.

- basically i believe that decisions or rules should be made at the lowest level needed for that rule to be useful.

Absolutely agree.

- that means, things like traffic rules should be made at a national or better even global level because it is not helpful to have different rules for that in every city. same goes for issues like polution. those are global problems.

I don't agree with global level. Nations has different wealth, different technologies, etc. You cannot apply same rules for US or India. Same for pollution. For example US made huge capital on pollution in 20th century. Would you ban developing country to obtain their capital from pollution today and made similar wealth as US previously?

- there should be zero taxes or zero mandated contributions of any form.

There should be absolute minimal taxes and no mandates. Consequences forces communities naturally to finance what is important.

- how would a political or electoral system look like that enables those things?

I'm not sure how it should look like, but I would like to free ourselves from the idea of needed rulers above our lives. We willing to put our responsibilities to authority, which dispatch our decisions from consequences.

Re: Is there anywhere in the world someone can just live for free?

#485
post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? Private property refers to the ownership of the organs of economic production - factories, steal mills, whatever - by private institutions (e.g shareholder-managed organisations). If your referring to markets in general, they have existed since the dawn of urban human civilisation, thousands of years before capitalism. Markets can even exist in the most despotic communist dictatorship, or…

And all of that basically failed or at least never expanded. It is not a scalable economic model that can work in large societies.

>failed

How? There was no economic failure. It ended due to a political coup. After all there was the slight external complication of a proxy war considered by many to be a prelude to the defining conflict of the 20th century.

>never expanded

Apart from across an entire country you mean?

Re: Is there anywhere in the world someone can just live for free?

#486
post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

those are interesting points. i think on the first one i think i am using a different definition of democracy. in short, for me democracy means something that actually works and respects the will of all people including minorities. simple rule of majority is not really democratic in my view. the flip side of that is that i do not believe that there is any country in the world today that has a functioning democracy. i…

- i do not believe that there is any country in the world today that has a functioning democracy. Because we are not living in ideal word. Truly functioning democracy require freedom of knowledge to have free and conscious decision in voting. Our decisions are shaped mostly by media. Which is, again, centralized. Also, if you want to be elected by people, you need to be a populist. So democratic system tend to shape…

Because we are not living in ideal word.

i agree with every point in that paragraph.

I don't agree with global level. Nations has different wealth, different technologies, etc. You cannot apply same rules for US or India

with traffic rules i meant the general stuff, like on which side to drive on, the colors of traffic lights, the design of street signs. those are pretty much already a global standard, and rightly so. because it does not make sense to have those work differently in different countries. of course there should always be carveouts for regional specifics. we don't need kangaroo warning signs in austria.

other examples are things that are for the most part already global standards. like the metric system. yes, the US should literally be forced to change here. it's become the laughing stock of the world on that issue. also copyright law. etc. money should be global. we don't need different currencies. maybe punishment for serious crimes. human rights. but on the other side there are many things that are global or almost global now, that should not, or need not be.

Same for pollution. For example US made huge capital on pollution in 20th century. Would you ban developing country to obtain their capital from pollution today and made similar wealth as US previously?

well, yes and no. i agree with you that it is not fair to just stop everyone from polluting when their economy depends upon it. but as pollution is destroying our climate, we have to do something about it. we can't just allow some areas to pollute the world while other areas don't. it would not work. what would, and does happen is that that those countries that decided to limit their pollution just export their production to pollute elsewhere.

what we do need to do however is to then enable other ways for these countries to prosper. we need to invest into those countries and build them up much like we built up some countries in asia and europe after world war 2. see more discussion on that in the thread on chocolate here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38073378

in particular this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38079451

I would like to free ourselves from the idea of needed rulers above our lives

agreed. partly i see this as a historical problem. we started out with rulers being absolute, like kings, etc.

eventually some started to elect their kings. etc. you know the history. that history is the reason we look at elected leaders as rulers above us.

so we need to change the understanding. that those elected representatives are there to serve us. not we serve them. their responsibility is to take care of our problems, and find and propose just solutions and rules for us to be able to live together.

there are a few things we can change to make the election system fairer:

first of the whole party system is designed for conflict and not cooperation. get rid of it. each representative should be independent. no more toeing the party line. make decisions only based on your conscience.

next point is a bit harder: get rid of the concept of candidates. don't allow election campaigns. don't allow media to promote certain people. let people get elected only based on their reputation as good citizens. this prevents influence of the elections by those who have more funding.

but that only works in small communities, where people have a chance to know each other. for big cities that practically means elections per neighborhood.

elect multiple people per neighborhood. also give each person multiple votes. maybe as many votes as the number of people to be elected. multiple votes avoids that a majority of votes concentrate on a single person. because everyone has to still assign the other votes they have.

these are then the community/neighborhood representatives, and they make decisions for their neighborhood.

elections on a higher level are made from those elected at a lower level. all the way to the top. this levels the playing field and it allows good people to become elected without financial resources.

i don't think a perfect system is possible. but this system would remove a lot of friction, combined with favoring decisions at a local level, it would be a lot better than anything we have currently.

Re: Is there anywhere in the world someone can just live for free?

#487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more nuanced than that. As it's currently ordered society is a forced participation regime. I don't get the option to say "no." to a great many things. This is due to a loss of security, I don't get to refuse work at a job or in general, and in the case that I do it becomes a compromise, and this compromise is largely arbitrary because there are really very few actual social distinctions in the world cur…

> I don't get to refuse work at a job or in general... Living is work no matter where. The monestary, for example, is no different than having a job to generate tradeable value to live. The article might really be interested in places where you can live entirely self-sufficiently, without relying on inputs that society voluntarily grants. For example, the Into the Wild guy in Alaska. He "lived" for "free", for a shor…

This is a radical aside that extrapolates my meaning to an extreme. I don't mean to say people had ought to refuse work altogether, moreso that it would be ideal if one could refuse to pay taxes to a government insistent on fueling wars, or that one could withdraw from work or more generally systems which one views as egregious. Conversely some middle ground might be acceptable.

While this does exist in theory, as I said, there are significant caveats. These are largely derived from the structure. However, I argue that the function could be optimized outside of, or with modification of the system. But overall the system in and of itself is self-reinforcing so there is a substantial barrier to such improvements, and such alterations will be made against an "adversarial network" for lack of a better term.

Re: Is there anywhere in the world someone can just live for free?

#488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole point of society is to be able to support those who can't support themselves. It's not to have a pool of resources from which you can accumulate and hold on to as many resources as you can. If you are able at all to give up any portion of the fruits of your labor you should be grateful for the conditions set up before you that allowed you to reach such place.

>The whole point of society is to be able to support those who can't support themselves. And the only way to do that is to threaten those that can support themselves with imprisonment and death if they don't support the weak? There's no other way where people might voluntarily help those people? You don't see the hyprocisy? >It's not to have a pool of resources from which you can accumulate and hold on to as many res…

I said nothing of the sort, you're arguing against something I didn't posit. And nothing of what you said really justifies the selfishness you extolled on your previous comment.

Re: Is there anywhere in the world someone can just live for free?

#489
post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America had better tech except now everything is built to break otherwise the air backed monetary system would fall apart if planned obsolescence didn't exist. The only reason costs are so high is because money can be printed at will so your savings will always be reduced. Sadly most people don't learn anything about finance and think stocks and bonds are good investment vehicles and fractional reserve is great. I gu…

Can you elaborate more ? I am curious.

A good place you can start is looking at "The Country School of Tomorrow"

Re: Is there anywhere in the world someone can just live for free?

#490
post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate more ? I am curious.

A good place you can start is looking at "The Country School of Tomorrow"

I found a 26 page book on archive org written in 1913 . Did you meant that book ?
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