How selfish am I really?

Don't I want everyone to have food to eat, clothes to wear, a roof over their heads, and an education?  Yes.  Even if they don't/won't/can't work?  Yes.  Certainly.  If unlimited supplies of manna dropped down from heaven and formed itself into instant shelter and clothing (and some remained food, of course) I would definitely want everyone to have some.  As much as they want, in fact.  I would even go so far as to say that if the stuff were free and unlimited, and people were stupid/selfish/whatever enough to try to stockpile it and keep it from those weaker than them, I would be willing to fight to make sure everyone got their share.

Am I willing to *work* to buy things for people who won't/don't/can't work?  Only the *can't* group.  I'm not all that fond of work myself, that I want to do extra of it just so someone else doesn't have to.

Someone recently posted that they thought everyone had a RIGHT to clothing, a decent house, food, and an education.  I admit, I don't agree with that.  But let's just say for a moment, just for the sake of argument, that we agreed everyone in our country MUST (not merely *should*) be provided such things.  And let's talk about it in practical terms.  How would it work?

Would you force everyone to pitch in to build the extra houses?  Would you tear down all the existing houses first and build up all the new ones as identical bare-minimum housing, or would you just create new bare-minimum housing for those who didn't work to "earn" a better house?  And how would you make everyone work to do it?  Everyone isn't willing to work now, how would you make them?  Or would it be purely volunteer?

Okay, let's say you work that out and everyone has a home.  Now what?  How do you feed everyone?  Manna *doesn't* actually fall from the sky.  Food must be grown, tended, harvested, shipped, distributed, cooked.  Who does these things, and WHY?

How selfish am I?  I'm so selfish that if I could have a roof over my head, food on my table, and clothes on my back, I probably wouldn't want much else.  Certainly not enough to work for it.  C'mon, 'fess up, how many of you would work 40 hours a week if you could have food and clothing and a home without it?  At the most, I would consider working for a few months and then taking a year off to enjoy the money, then I'd start the process over again.  After all, if I already had food, clothing, and shelter, then a little money would go a loooong way.  Assuming, of course, that I could buy anything for a little money.  There will be a lot fewer people producing things, so with supply lower things might cost a lot more.  On the other hand, there will probably be fewer people with money to buy things, so with demand lower, prices might stay the same.  It's hard to say.  But then, the work I *did* do would have to support me AND whoever wasn't working and also wanted food and clothing.  How many do you suppose that would be?  One working in 10 if we're lucky?  So you'll have to work 10 times as hard to provide yourself the same food and clothing?  Did I mention that I really don't like working?

There *will* be people who enjoy working, and they'll work really hard no matter what.  Of course, they already *are* working really hard.  But the reality is that most of us, if we didn't *have* to work, would work less than we currently do - by a lot.  So how on earth do you maintain a society where the average production is even LESS than it currently is, and still provide food and clothing and shelter for everybody?

Of course, if everyone lives on a small enough scale, with little enough luxury, in close proximity, and you can encourage everyone to produce or leave the community, you can do it.  And it certainly has been proven to work that way.  And since I'd be one of the lazy ones, it's probably a good place for me.

I think I'll try to find one of those communities.  I know they were really popular in the 60's.  What are they called again?  Something to do with how they base everything on the needs of the community...