This question will require some explaining, so bear with me (I phrased it how I did because I wanted to emphasize one of the connections). I ask this here because economics seem to be a huge topic here, especially when it comes to certain schools of thought (not that I’m judging, you have your reasons).
So here is me trying to explain my question.
First, I must admit I find the concept of a minimum wage to be, for a lack of a better word, incomplete (weird? not well-oiled? I couldn’t find the word). While being based by the hour albeit not factoring in the amount of work done, I understand basic existence amounts to a certain etimated value, and you don’t want overhaggling, so a glass floor is made. But a glass floor can break under pressure. But I digress.
Anyways, I was talking to someone about the concept, and we started using analogies using letters in place of concepts: “W cannot pay X a certain amount of Y so in order to pay to live she goes to Z.”
It was one of those no-context moments, so our minds were drawn to a third friend who related to it platonically, this person wasn’t mentally compatible with most social groups, so then criminals (the Z) would come and say “come join us, we have the friends you’re looking for”.
He added, “police consider ‘bad crowds’ a huge problem, but nobody pays the involuntary loners any minimum due, no glass floor provided by the public sector, no nothing, and the wrong people get the upper hand here because they’re there to farm you while you just want someone to value you enough in a way that translates well to you, and our bedroom community becomes a gossip-cursed cesspool because there is no adhesive”. Should point out this isn’t a new thought process, in fact it’s relevant to me occupationally.
Promoters of universal basic necessities of Lemmy, why is there a lacking here? Is it not weird we (officially) have it out for one aspect but not the other?
Their writing moreso sounds like it comes from a lack of confidence or understanding. They don’t have a well-defined question because they don’t know the base-level concepts well enough to formulate a more advanced question.
Either that, or they have ASD. Or both. I still talk like this, and I only recently got diagnosed.
Sorry about that, it seems late English skills don’t mix well with meta discussion, though I assumed it wouldn’t be an issue as others could make something of it.
I think you are confusing the concept of minimum wage with the glass floor. These are not the same things.
That reddit post is a charitable interpretation, but if it’s what you are saying, then first comment summarizes it best with ‘state mandated friendships’. In which case, I would argue that isn’t going to solve crime. Let’s take the US which has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world as an example. People aren’t becoming criminals just because they don’t have friends, they become criminals because of a lack of social safety nets such as universal healthcare, accessible housing, homeless shelters, livable wages, public transit, progressive taxes, affordable childcare, drug addiction treatment safe spaces. They are also pushed into being criminalized by for profit prisons, the war on drugs, lack of gun control, police brutality, redlining and racism.
There is so much more than that the lack of friendships that goes into why people become criminals. We need to stop looking at it as just a matter of moral failure of individuals, and start looking at the systemic reasons to why people commit crimes.
You say that like the reason people become criminals doesn’t vary between people. Is what’s described not itself a form of social safety net? What then is the point of what it’s based on if that itself isn’t significant enough to matter in the grand scheme?
I just listed a myriad of reasons why people might become criminals, and I never said that lack of friendships isn’t one, I said it’s not the only one. Friendships are hardly a social safety net. Having friends doesn’t guarantee you food, shelter, or safety.