| I sympathize with the underlying thought, but I think that it is worth using this as a model of when we should use the tool of socialism and when we should use the tool of capitalism... what should be the balance? In this case the fundamental problem seems to be that not enough people want to work in childcare, for the money that those businesses are currently offering. Part of that problem is for some of the potential workers the barrier is that paying for childcare for their own children would cost enough to make working in the industry not worth the money for them. So the two solutions proposed here are: make childcare free for those who provide childcare, and making childcare free for everyone. Both of these solutions solve the problem for potential workers whose main problem is the affordability of their own childcare. Notably the "free for everyone" does not actually improve solving the one problem we are talking about: it does not unblock anyone else to enable more workers in this one industry. But conversely it would unblock those people from working in other industries, ones that already seem to pay more. So it would probably wind up with less people working in childcare than the more focused "childcare free for childcare workers". The counter-point to this of course is that we are creating a huge market distortion, essentially "forcing" people into childcare work (not really, but...). The pure capitalistic solution would be to leave it like it is: let the market decide how much childcare is worth, and that will sort itself out. The problem with this approach is that it winds up producing a less-than-optimal solution: people who would be more productive for society wind up at home doing individual child care, and there are vastly different outcomes for children of well-off families than those of the poor (so societal imbalance based on the birth lottery). To me the only right solution is for some sort of wage stipend from the government (from tax monies) that goes directly to childcare workers. This would absolutely be the government putting its thumb on the scale to increase the supply of childcare workers, but form the government's perspective it is probably a good investment both to get more workers available in all categories, and to improve outcomes for the children of low-wage families (good both in a floats-all-boats perspective, and a social justice one). The problem is, of course, that it is absolutely a socialist means of improving things, and those who have made capitalism a religion are going to go nuts about that. |
I've seen some pretty heinous opinions on this site, things such as safety regulations shouldn't exist just let the market decide. The companies insurance premiums will raise and so companies will naturally want to be safer!
As if that's more important than _preventing_ the loss of limbs.