&gt;hunger pain and risk of homelessness are what motivate many people to drag themselves to work.  Without that threat, many people choose to be unproductive<p>That, in my view, smacks of rationalization of widespread exploitation of an entire sector of human beings.<p>This forum is full of people that will not starve if they don&#x27;t work -- at least not for a while.  But the vast majority are doing what they can to create value in the world.  Are they just better human beings than the poor who must be threatened in order to create value?  Or have we built enough capital of one type or another to make the transaction of our time and effort and application of our capital worth it?  An improvement of our lot?<p>If all of us more fortunate creatures were told that we&#x27;d never turn a profit for our efforts, how many of us would put in that effort?  I would wager not many (a situation that plagued most of those socialist systems you mentioned).<p>The poor are put in a situation where they are asked to work but never profit.  They must work to limit their loss.  They must work to merely not die.  It is little wonder that we have people that prefer welfare and don&#x27;t do much to better their position because the alternative is to spend their time and effort pushing for -- nothing.<p>What I would push for is not Socialism -- which is where everybody owns the means of production which is dragging everyone down into that same pitiable state of never being able harvest your own profit for your own efforts -- but merely giving the poor a guarantee that they will not die or be in pain -- enough food, housing, medical care to live.  Those that need their labor will then have to entice them to work.  They have to look at how much their labor is worth to them and try and pay them based on how much profit they can wring from the value they can create -- like lawyers are paid, engineers, management, skilled workers, professionals...literally everyone else.  It&#x27;s not crazy, it is how 3&#x2F;4s of the population in the US conducts business.  It is just an extension of that strong bargaining position in the free market to those in danger of having to work for less than their time is worth for no hope of bettering their position just to merely not die.<p>It may mean that I have to take it on a bit of faith, but I trust that 1&#x2F;4 at the bottom will work to better their position just like the rest of us if given the chance.  I don&#x27;t think we&#x27;re any better, when it comes down to it.