We have free health and education because that is the height of civilization, is it not? And how come the fundamental human need - food - is not free and must be bought at market prices?
It's about time to do something about it. A man can not go without bread, bread is a fundamental human right and should be available to everyone. In order to eliminate poverty, the state should produce and sell bread.
The world has so much agricultural land that it can feed half of Europe, and it allows many people to barely survive because they do not have bread. Agriculture needs to become a civil service and farmers need to sell cereals to state silos that will collect them for state bakeries. One in every town.
How will this be financed, you may be wondering? It’s simple. A solidarity contribution from each person’s paycheck. It does not have to be anything big, 15 percent is enough. You won’t even feel it, because you will not be the one paying - your employers will be from the gross salary of each worker - a 15% contribution to bread. And then it will be free for everyone, both for the unemployed and for everyone, so nobody will be hungry!
On the first day when the state bakeries are opened, long lines for bread from early morning will appear before them. People will take about ten pounds, how much they fit into their cars or barrels. It's free, so the opportunity for a freebie should be exploited!
By 10 o’clock the bakery will dry up. No more bread. A shortage. Soon we realize that we need to produce more bread, there are not enough farmers, the state employs new ones. A gold rush. Who will choose the right people? Establish agencies in each county that choose new farmers. The government is at thirty percent efficiency and its employees are protected by a union, so there needs to be three times as many workers.
The state realizes that this leads to chaos, and makes the law that everyone can only get half a kilo of bread a day. For children a quarter. We must not be wasteful in a time of shortage. And to whom that is not enough, they can buy more from the private bakeries.
And the price of bread from the private bakery jumped two-three times because they switched to an elite clientele, one that can afford additional bread purchases. The elite does not have to wait for two hours in a long line, but that's why it needs to pay. Members of the elite are outraged by those prices and comment that it is good that there is a national production of bread because poor people could not afford bread sold by the private bakeries.
Next year, a budget deficit. From the voluntary contributions that go toward making bread free, the government has collected a few billion less than it needs for production costs. How to solve this new crisis? The ministry in charge has an idea: to increase the voluntary contribution. Increasing the contribution to 18 percent would solve the problem for the whole year! In two years, with the rise in public debt, the contribution is again raised to 20 percent. The people are a bit displeased, but they know that it is the necessary thing, because otherwise they would have to buy bread at market prices sold by the private bakeries. This way, the government takes care of them. No one is dying of starvation, and bread is available to all.
Then some neoliberal economists come up with the idea to privatize the system because private bakeries could do the job much better than the state-operated ones, but the people grumble about the evils of neo-liberal capitalism.
Economic experts explain: "Throughout Europe, all countries are investing public money and encouraging the production of cereals to make bread. Bread must remain free and accessible to all, and our country is spending the least on bread among all EU countries. But the process is not managed properly. All we need is a little optimization and cost cutting, getting the right people to manage it all... ".