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Robert Cable's avatar

Unquestionably so!

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Tom Tunes's avatar

You write repeatedly that this is simple, John, but I’m not so sure about that. In my little beach town in S. California we have a large number of homeless, the vast majority of whom have migrated here from other areas. As is the case everywhere else, about two thirds are mentally ill and two thirds are serious substance abusers. Almost none ever work and a large number don’t even desire housing. It’s not as if most or even a majority of these people are just temporarily “down and out” and it is even questionable how many can be rehabilitated to such a state. Many, if not most, will remain wards of the society, dependent upon others for their very survival. If they move into free housing, they and “their” housing would need to be maintained, at others’ expense. That all can be done; it’s just that there isn’t a blueprint for doing so and how it would be done would need to be determined by the local egalitarian assembly, I assume, in your model? I have a question as well. This is a pretty affluent area. There are no janitors on my street, for example, though everybody who lives either works, or has worked, for a living. Are we thieves?

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