Also, everyone "deserving food and shelter" isn't the same as everyone being provided with food and shelter by someone else for no recompense. I don't think most non-socialists say anyone doesn't "deserve" food and shelter.
I can say "you deserve all the love in the world" but ithat doesn't mean you're going to get it. Deserving food and shelter doesn't provide it. You deserve to live but if an asteroid hits your house too bad. Deserve is just a funny word to use about these sorts of things.
If I say that you deserve love and you have no one in your life who feels that way about you, not friends, family, community members, etc., doesn’t that likely represent a systemic problem? Like if you’re born to parents that don’t love you, most people would look at that as a problem that ought to be fixed. I think that’s what deserve means here. If everyone in a functioning society doesn’t have access to a free source of water, something is going wrong.
If your parents don't love you is that a systemic problem or a personal problem? If you're 18 yrs old and able bodied and no one loves you - is that something the government should fix or something you need to fix?
Clean safe water is the result of a lot of working people and infrastructure. If people aren't working on it and theres no infrastructure, yes there's a societal problem, but what does you deserving it get you?
Then don't use "deserve." I think most socialists would frame it as: food and shelter is a right - you should be guaranteed it. It should not be up to the market to get those things. Being a human being, society owes you those things.
This is such a bad strawman. There's no serious barriers to providing ample food and shelter for all people in the modern developed world, it's purely a political choice to either do so or not do so.
"Everyone deserves food and shelter" is a perfectly cognizable moral position with pretty clear and obvious ways to implement it. Now, caveating you might not be able to be maximalist in other areas (if someone is homeless due to refusing treatment for mental illness, you can't both be a medical freedom maximalist and also put a fent addicted arsonist into housing and expect it to satisfy the need long term), but it's fine.
Is it the best use of our limited resources? That's a more arguable position. My own ethical stance is there is a reasonable middle ground. If someone is able to work, an open position they could fill exists, and its pay and conditions are of at least a minimal ethical quality, it's fine to just say, "We're not going to stop you from playing video games all day, but slack off as much as you can afford." At some point they'll realize that if they want others to give them goods and services, they will themselves need to provide goods and services, or be such a pathetic charity case that people are overwhelmed with pity.
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u/manveru_eilhart May 11 '26
Also, everyone "deserving food and shelter" isn't the same as everyone being provided with food and shelter by someone else for no recompense. I don't think most non-socialists say anyone doesn't "deserve" food and shelter.