theconcealedweapon:

The usual defense of capitalism is that it’s voluntary. A customer has money that they want to trade for a product or service, and a business has a product or service that they want to trade for money. An employee wants to trade their labor for money, and a business wants to trade money for the employee’s labor.

But that only works when it’s actually voluntary.

If the alternative is to die, then it’s not voluntary. If someone would die without healthcare, then paying for healthcare is not voluntary. If someone wouldn’t be able to afford to live if they didn’t work, then working is not voluntary.

Healthcare should not be for profit, because it can never be voluntary.

Universal basic income should exist to make working voluntary. People would still have an incentive to work because they’d most likely want to afford more than just surviving, but businesses would have to give them a reason to want to work for them. Businesses would have to pay their employees what their labor is actually worth instead of paying them the lowest that they can get away with.