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by viraptor 2651 days ago
At some level - why not? Getting enough food not to starve shouldn't require having money. That's what food banks, soup kitchens, etc. are about. It doesn't mean luxury food, just like the public toilets are basic.
1 comments

There are free public restrooms (at least in my country), which are equivalent of the soup kitchens in your example. What he's proposing though is to NEVER pay for the restroom, even if you can afford it - you should always look for free one instead. He hopes that this form of boycott, if it becomes popular enough, will convince toilet owners to not charge for the use. In the food context, it would mean always eating in soup kitchens in the hopes that food producers will give out food for free (or it will be 100% subsidized by government).

The only difference between universal food and universal toilets seems to be the cost - i.e. it would be much more affordable for government to supply free toilets than free food for everyone. In this view his argument makes sense - both the need to eat and the need to pee when in public are fundamental, so if we can take care of at least one of them (toilets), then it's still better than nothing.

Stallman doesn’t propose not paying for the toilet.
From his https://stallman.org/pay-toilets.html :

> I have concluded that the least we can do, to eliminate pay toilets, is to avoid giving them money. Instead of paying them, I go to great lengths to find some other toilet.

> Please join me in rejecting pay toilets firmly.