Help me out, here

[Dill]

(12-08-2021, 09:56 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: So, I've been thinking a fair amount, lately, and I'm concerned I'm becoming a bit of a conspiracy theorist. It's no secret I'm a bit of a leftist with some strong anti-capitalist leanings, but I saw some posts online and have had some conversations that really made me start thinking about our current system. I was talking about policies that could be enacted to all but eliminate homelessness. We talked about single-payer healthcare/Medicare for all. We talked about a stronger social safety net and things like codifying food as a basic human right (there is a legislator in WV that has introduced legislation saying this).

Ever since that conversation where we discussed these policies and the barriers to them I have been thinking about that and the two party structure along with the corporatocracy that exists here in the US and I came to this realization that these things will never come to fruition because of implausibility. They system we have in this country relies on homelessness and insurance tied to employment because it creates a fear that keeps people working. It fills the exploitation engines of our capitalist system. These corporations need us to fear the potential to become homeless and unable to afford food or medical treatment because without that fear they would have to actually compensate us fairly for our labor. Instead, we are reliant on them to provide us these things so we are willing to accept less than we are really worth. We are willing to tolerate conditions that would otherwise be intolerable.

Am I sounding off the rails? This has just been on my mind, lately, and it's been making me feel a little depressed.

Stop doubting yourself. 

Also, why not regard "implausibility" as a question rather than an answer? What makes a fairer system seem implausible to Americans, to which Americans especially, and why? I know you've been working over those questions, but it sounds like your current inquiries are leading to hope-killing dead ends.

European countries like Germany are capitalist for sure, based on exploitation of labor--and yet the social safety net is so much better there than here. How is it that the German corporate class turns a profit without relying on fear of homelessness and employment-tied insurance? Why don't high wages harm their balance of trade? Perhaps more importantly, why don't German workers accept the same level of exploitation as US? Do German workers defend corporate profit rates the way US workers do? 

Exploitive innovations, like co-pays for health insurance and pensions based on stock investments seem to cross national boundaries easily. Why not the reverse? 

I don't have time to go into greater detail at the moment, but I've often urged Americans to widen their consideration of health care options beyond the binary of "single-payer" vs "what-we-have-now." I have discussed the German system here before, which is not single-payer, but buttresses a private insurance industry rather like our own with non-profit coops. No medical bankruptcies there. 

Back in the early 70s, that RINO-socialist Nixon started us down a similar road by instituting HMOs, but by the early 80s these were being converted to "profitable" concerns, and promptly began innovating new ways to raise fees and reduce payouts to create that profit. Helping people understand why "market-based solutions" and for profit status can diminish public/service institutions while raising their costs (think of higher-ed and the military here, as well as health care) could be a positive goal of people like ourselves.