We all talk a lot about human rights, but it is strange that the fundamental, basic right to live and exist hasn't been granted yet. Its nothing but a disgrace that people still die from lacking basic necessities such as food and water. Why aren't these basic amenities provided for free, at a rationed level, to those who need it? 

What, suddenly it's very hard to provide the right to live to fellow members of your species? What year is this, 10000 BC?

Yes, I agree its an economic nightmare. The budget required would be colossal, and even with private citizen contributions it would require curtailing of many other government expenses, both unnecessary and less necessary. Should the means of production be state-owned, they are bound to fall to corruption, and should they be private, inefficiencies and huge government costs would prevail. Its a very tricky, difficult matter.

Yet, I have a bone to pick with the moral side of the counterargument. The argument made is that should people be provided food, water, and other necessities such as housing, electricity etc., they would not work. And, I ask, what's so bad about that? A society that prioritizes the right to work over the right to live is a devolved society, if you ask me.

Besides, its not like providing people with basic sustenance and facilities makes them go 'ah yes, time to be a lazy useless burden on the government for eternity'. You'd be surprised with the tendency of humans to eventually get dissatisfied and bored with anything. The basic, standard provisions won't keep anybody satisfied for too long, and work just changes from necessity-driven to luxury/want-driven. Even rich people like Jeff Besoz and Musk still work, I don't see why you or I wouldn't. The extra financial security provided by not having to scrape a living would help people pursue their passion rather than get into minimum wage jobs, which will increase productivity and satisfaction with one's work life.

Why are houses so costly? If adequate shelter is a basic need, then why isn't it accessible for more people? Even capitalistic policies support intervention government in the case of market failures, wherein actions by buyers and/or sellers prevent the market from reaching its ideal outcome, such as in the case of a monopoly. In the property market, often properties are withheld from the market, since the prices would inevitably rise as a country's economy grows, and there is no penalty for holding empty, unused houses. Or a property owner simply doesn't want to rent out his properties for various random reasons. This leads to a contraction in supply, which allows artificial raising of price despite there existing the same demand. 

Perhaps a law which prevents properties from staying unleased and removed from the market, for more than 5 years, may help alleviate this problem. Or a minimum 50 percent occupancy for apartments. I still can't believe land is costly due to demand generated from housing, when efficient land-saving housing systems (i.e. tall buildings) have already been discovered and are within our construction capabilities but not being fully implemented. I'm not saying they should ban individual housing or something, however an extra cost could be imposed while apartments should be drastically cheaper due to cost-savings gained from operating at their increased capacity (economies of scale).

And we haven't even discussed the right to progress yet. Shouldn't everyone have equal opportunities to grow and succeed in life, if they are putting the effort in? Yet it's a true saying that 'money helps make more money', and a regressive system with inequality at its core is bound to favor the rich in every aspect of life. The least governments can do is provide education, not just till school but also university level, at rates that are affordable to almost all. Some universities need to rationalize their cost structure, for either they are making too much profit or have too high costs, both of which are financially detrimental to their students.

People say that minimum wage is good enough pay for most, but they fail to recognize that everyone has different financial needs. Some have greater number of dependents to support on their income, some have medical conditions, others have debt and EMIs for essential goods and services, some of which may be required to be able to work in the first place, such as a car or bike for transport, or initial investment such as in work tools or education. Or housing of course. 

I would want to say that increasing minimum wage should help, but the fact is that there is nothing preventing businesses from transferring the entire or major part of the costs to the consumers, who would be forced to buy at the high price due to the lack of alternatives. There is no mechanism to force companies to lower the margins on their product, even if they be unhealthily high in certain industries.

Since my thoughts are flowing, might as well address the unbelievable clowns who believe increasing taxes for the rich is immoral. Sure, your big entrepreneur built his company from scratch and took the financial risk and strain and deserves to be rewarded, but a reward equal to GDP of a few small countries and states? Excuse me if you feel that's not excessive. You do realize that they didn't build the company alone, but relied on their employees' blood and sweat as well, and now don't even put as much work in it as before? The only reason they are rich is because they owned the business from the start, but now that they have reached unreal level of financial success, you still want to reward them for something that doesn't even run majorly on their efforts anymore? The only thing separating an employee and an owner's right on their workplace's profits is just ownership, which is how the system works. Yet if the gulf between these two's incomes is widening to extremely unfair proportions, its only fair for the government to intervene.

On a sidenote, billionaires aren't even concerned about your tax increases for the rich. They have got whole teams of accountants to use loopholes, illegal and legal, to reduce their tax. They can transfer their capital with ease across countries. They have got countless tax-deductible concessions which include corporate expenses, unlike us, who are taxed upon our full income even if it goes towards our costs of sustenance and basic necessities. And their existing wealth is so large you could knock off a few zeroes and they'll still be richer than your entire town/city. Warren Buffett himself boasts that you could tax him above 90 percent but it won't change his standard of living. Don't see why anyone else should have a problem then. Income tax is applicable on future income, and it can reduce the growth rate of inequality at least.

Anyways, one thing the pro-capitalists do say right, is to stop complaining and just work hard. Because indeed, there is nothing that a common individual can do about this situation. Even for the government it is a quite hard task, for we don't want billionaire capital fleeing the country, and any type of new measure will always have loopholes for big businesses to exploit. Yet, I see a way to help people out of it, though its not very hopeful.

One way to help people move up in the system is financial literacy. Schools must add modules on basic financial knowledge at a priority basis, which doesn't include only doing taxes but also managing personal budgets i.e. reducing and rationalizing your expenses and maximizing income. Some people have the insensitivity to criticize the poor for being financially imprudent, yet I ask them, who taught them to manage finances in the first place? People aren't born with money management skills, and some extra knowledge about money literally helps everyone.

The schooling system is terrible, we all have already addressed that at some point in life I guess. Academics seem to have more inertia than the government itself, which is appalling. Students' opinion seem to have absolutely no role in shaping academics to meet their needs, and such is the result. Keep teaching literature, algebra, quantum physics and foreign languages to those who won't need it in their life, ever. Ironic that I, a quasi-writer, would hate English lang & lit. But it is the truth, it taught me barely anything useful, and I learnt most of the language by reading. And not by any of those headaches they assign, but by books that people actually want to read. If anything, more people start disliking reading due to the needlessly complex, boring and dry stuff given in school (I've seen this happen), probably just another way to take away something actually beneficial for everyone...surprised I graduated without the knowledge of basic first-aid.

To everyone goes on about the power of education, and how the pen is mightier than the sword, I disagree with you. It is the power of right education, not just any education. Knowledge is only helpful to those who need it and can utilize it. A jack of all trades education has very limited benefits. Perhaps education deserves to be individualized than delivered in the mass-system it is, to actually meet the students' needs. Or at least in smaller groups with similar needs/interests. And why isn't self-learning normalized? I can literally finish school and college courses on the internet for free, but I still have to spend time and resources attending the physical version. E-learning is just as authentic as physical learning and much more flexible. One can speed up or slow down courses according to their learning pace, they can also attend lessons at any time and pause them too. Still if you don't believe its at the same level, just take a few extra tests and give us our deserved qualifications. While I understand people crave the high school/college experience, for people who are having difficulty affording it, this could be the great boost we need. (Sigh)

To sign off, the world is a Lego building falling apart, and you can try rebuilding and fixing it piece by piece, only for chunks to go down elsewhere. Humans are incapable of building a civilization that is ideal for their well-being, and hope for divine intervention, apocalypse or an AI/alien takeover to initiate real change. Good luck with that, until then, life is just 'so long and thanks for all the mandatory work'.