Shouldnt food be a "basic human right"???

reply to post by drew hempel

So what?
They work for their living. It isn't "free". And sometime (droughts) it wasn't there at all.

This is something that had bugged me big time when I was much younger..

As I was growing up and actually began to see how the world worked (in the way of price rises and costs of goods) and as to how different everything was several thousand years ago.

It awlays confused me how a new electronic good came onto the market at an example price of 500, and a loaf of bread was 1...
A few years down the line and the electronic good is now only worth 225, but bread now costs 3.

Bread has been a staple food for mankind ever since we learnt how to grow the grain needed to make flour. Yet the cost of it, in comparison to time, continues to rise. The only thing I could make out as to why it continued to rise was due to the amount of new electronic goods that kept coming on the market at extorsion prices.

Bread is now so very easy to make, compared to several hundred people ploughing, planting, cutting a field for grain, milling the grain, prepping the flour and actually making the bread, down to one man doing the field bit in a big machine and one baker to switch the ovens on.

Always found that odd how the price of our daily needs kept rising. They still are really.. You'd think milk would be very cheap, or free, seeing as the cows always produce the same quality of the stuff.. you can't get a 'new and improved' milk from a cow, like you can from washing powder or cereals.

Yes I have fished for my dinner, and have grown my own fruit and veg too.

I think the problem is that if bread and milk were free, how do you pay those who help to bring it to us? Should everything be free too, so that the demand for such goods as electrical items, gadgets, toys, entertainment drops off? You can't have one without the other, as they say. I have noticed how many services (mostly on the internet) are now becoming free in order to get some business (note; some of this 'free' stuff is actually pre paid by the government that gets the cash for that from your taxes)

If everything was free (as suggested in the Venus project) then maybe we would all be much nicer to each other, our attitudes would change towards the world and our environment, there might not be so much litter and pollution too.

It's a tough cookie...

Originally posted by Phage

They work for their living. It isn't "free". And sometime (droughts) it wasn't there at all.

Yup, very true.

That is the differnce though.. working for a living or living to work.

Yesteryear was all about having to get up and go work for your food.. It was the mainstay behind the meaning of work for a living...

Dig the ground to grow your grain. Hunt the dear with your hard learnt skills and hand made bows etc..

Proper trade skills really.

Today we work for money in order to maintain a diet.
I don't have many doubts that we were far fitter back then. Far keener to actually go and get some food. More time on our hands for friends and family and community.

These days, we barely have enough time to read and reply to a post on ATS

Too many swings and roundabouts..my heads spinning.. stop the ride, I wanna get off

reply to post by Phage


www.fpcn-global.org...

Festus Mogae, the President of Botswana is of the opinion, that if the Bushmen are allowed to go hunting, they would have enough to eat and would not work any more. Roy said: "We are not economic beings, because we do not need to shop. We do not need to go to the shops because we do not have to go to work in the way you think.

Originally posted by SM2
You know what else should be a basic human right? Survival of the fittest.

I shall remind you of that statement when u r old and gray
and in a nursing home. My son will come in and turn off
your ventilator and see if u can fend him off to turn
it back on. Survival of the fittest is only a matter of TIMING.
You won't be fit ALL ur wonderful life.

reply to post by boondock-saint


Thats fine, natures laws, cant beat em. If I am in a nursing home, and your son would like to commit murder, then so be it. Awesome parenting skills to raise such a fine person.

reply to post by drew hempel

Have you ever gone hunting? I mean really hunting, not "gentlemen" hunting.
It's work.


[edit on 3/23/2010 by Phage]

reply to post by Phage


Chris Rock: "America is the only place where people go hunting on a full stomach"!

Wow good times in thid thread alreedy with the arguments and counterarguments both!

reply to post by IgnoranceIsntBlisss


I agree with you...but I think our economic system and structure of society does not support the word Free.

However, Yes I think if we agreed to anything we should agree that food, shelter, health etc. should be things we collectively provide each other.

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by drew hempel

 

Yup.
They just sat there and an antelope would jump into their lap, cut it's own throat, gut itself, dress itself, build a fire and roast itself.

Haha well said.

But what about the future where robots might be one of the main workforces out there, it could change our society in many ways.

[edit on 23-3-2010 by _Phoenix_]

reply to post by _Phoenix_

There are probably a lot of things that could change our social and economic structure but we're pretty much stuck with the hand we've been dealt for now. As has been pointed out, that means that some will get "free" food at the expense of others whether or not they either deserve or need it.

But, as I said, There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. It always costs something. It's a law of the universe (or human nature, at least). No matter what, that will always be the case.


[edit on 3/23/2010 by Phage]

At the moment, the only thing that is truly free for us is the air we breath.

Everything else has to be worked for.

As far as robots doing all the work within a monetary system, then there will be plenty of jobs for people at amusement parks, hotels, cinemas, restaurants, movie/music making, arts and crafts... We would become a society of entertainers and entertained rather than employers and employees.

The main employers, who operate all the companies, will have nothing better to do than spend their life being entertained. This would be possibly the only way that a monetary society could continue to keep the money rolling.

But that is not taking into account any space travel or planet colonisation. This would change things a little.. but not a lot..

I think we could be in real danger if this happens.. if everything was free and all that was left was to deter boredom.
By all means, make everything free, but do so in a way that we can have the time on our hands to advance us forwards..not just in the mind, body and soul, but outwards to other galaxies.

I think Roger Waters says it rather splendidly here;

Google Video Link

When has food ever been "free"? Even cavemen had to go out and either kill something or pick something from the ground. There has never been a free lunch except for the wealthy. Food is NOT a human "right", it is a product of labor just like capital.

In a perfect world yes food should be free.
I find it interesting that many posters talk about the hand we've been dealt and nothing is free and so on and so forth. Well the way I see it the whole system of Capitalistic work to make profit isn't really earning in the truest sense of the word. Economic theories and equations do not recognize the finite nature of natural resources on Earth. Most capital these days is acrued at the expense of something or someone. Or a perversion of the original state of toiling to accomplish something.

Looka t the mess that was made of the US economy by creating imaginary money to earn money. Seems the fat cats just got fatter while the rest starved.

yes. We have a right to eat. It is not our fault the feudal lords created land ownership and restricted us from getting food. If they open the land for our use we will work it and get food. Otherwise they are withholding our food and we have a right to ask them to get the food to us. Unless they want us to starve. Oh, that's right, people are starving ! Never mind rights.

What I don't understand is we lived thousands of years without doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies. Actually, the amount of time we have had those things is about 1/10th of the amount of time we've been on this Planet as a species. And don't cite to me how much longer we live....How old was Moses when he died? ok, it may be a biblical story, but there has to be some truth to the ages of these people as they are quoted as living FAR longer than we do now. And did you ever notice how the oldest living humans around now are NOT in these countries with all these doctors and hospitals and insurance and pharmeceutical companies? I actually think we'd live better healthier lives than we do now if we just got rid of them ALL!!!!!!!!

No right to healthcare, they just want to kill us off...this is the fastest way!!!!

My friends, you are asking the wrong question.

The question should be: do you want food to be free or not?
Or, do you want at least some basic food supply to be free or not?

My answer is a deep "YES".
People should have free access (without payment) to some food and tap water, as well as breathing air and sunlight.

Call me an idealist, but that's my choice.
And this is possible and doable.
It requires a culture of trust and brotherhood, of care to one another.
Kind of a global "ecovillage"
I respect if you think otherwise.










[edit on 23-3-2010 by segurelha]

Yeah. And when lazy people come to hop my fence and raid my garden your idealism is cuput. Get real people. You know you dont want lazy people helping themselves to your garden, fridge, cupboards, etc. How often to do hand spa'ngers monies and food? I give them packets of mixed seeds and tell them to grow food like I do.

also in parallel with this sort of idealism:

"We need to take the middleman out of the food industry".

"The food industry should NOT be for profit! Farmers should only work the land passed down to them to get "free" healthcare".

"Grocery stores shouldnt be allowed to profit for their time, work, investments."

"Chefs and cooks in restaurants should slave labor in hot kitchens for the public good. Here take this government sanctioned healthcare (that you still have to pay for no matter what) in place of a paycheck."

During the off season fruit and vegetables are shipped in from countries where the food is in season, and vice-versa...
"Everyone in the shipping industry should work for free knowing they're helping lots of lazy fat people stuff their faces with the food they labor for. Shipyards should build ships for free. Ironworkers who build the ships shouldnt gripe about how hard theyre job is to do it for nothing. Lazy people are trying to chow down while watching tv and playing video games out there somewhere and its the iron workers job to ensure the ships and machinery for global food distribution."

Originally posted by Asktheanimals
When has food ever been "free"? Even cavemen had to go out and either kill something or pick something from the ground. There has never been a free lunch except for the wealthy. Food is NOT a human "right", it is a product of labor just like capital.

I think a few people in this thread are confused as to what "Free" means.... I'm assuming we're talking free in the monetary sense right?

So yes, Cavemen ate free food and picking something from the ground was free too.

It may have been work and they may have risked their life, but in terms of cost.. it was free.


As for the OP, I think Healthcare should be free.

The amount that I've heard some people quote for what they pay for insurance, like $500 a month and so on?
It would be cheaper to just have a "national insurance" as we do in the UK and everyone pays in and it would certainly be cheaper than $500pm...

But then, We're all socialist commies and everyone dies on the NHS and we're crazy to want to have free health care, if people can't afford treatment then that's tough **** right?

reply to post by blupblup


I was being sarcastic in the OP. Read it more closely.

Since youre from the UK, can you tell us all about "N.I.C.E."?