Do people deserve to have a job? Is it a basic right? How would you create a system that ensures all able-bodied people had employment?
All people need (or "deserve," whatever that means in this context) to have a job - otherwise, they are not doing anything productive for society. Of course, the thing about giving everyone a job is that there are only so many jobs that need doing - and that number is based on the demand for the products jobs produce, which is, of course, based on the jobs consumers have that give them income to buy these products. It's a rather circular system, and I'm not sure what I could do about it. In a capitalist system, unemployment is lowered when the marginal cost for businesses to hire more workers becomes less than the marginal benefit of hiring new workers - that is, when the supply of whatever is being produced is less than what is demanded.
Therefore, if we could find a way to raise demand, we could proportionally lower unemployment.
Do people deserve a home? Is it a basic right? If not, why not? If so, why?
People deserve shelter. "Homes" is open to interpretation, and can mean either "a place to live" or "ownership of one's own building." Some, possibly many people cannot handle the latter, and logically it should be impossible for everyone to be a home-owner due to simple concerns of resources (like land area). Granted, I'm sort of biased since I don't really understand the appeal of living in your own personal "home." I'm personally a fan of the "arcology" idea.
Arcology - RationalWiki
Do people deserve free medical, paid for proactively, through taxation? Is it a basic right? If not, why not? If so, why?
Absolutely. If we only heal people when it is profitable to do so, we will end up wasting more money than needed on it, not to mention the human suffering involved (unless we repeal the laws dictating that an emergency room MUST take in people, regardless of their ability to pay - in this case the problem would boil down to human suffering in the name of profit).
Of course, by "medical" I'm assuming you are referring to needed medical procedures, and not things like cosmetic surgery.
Do people deserve a "living wage"? Is it a basic right? If not, why not? If so, why?
Well, the way I see it, we have three options:
We give people a "living wage," aka, a minimum wage that is needed to sustain their survival, and compensate businesses for the loss if necessary.
We do not give people a living wage, but we still have to provide them with welfare so that they don't die. This can have the effect of making them reliant on being poor enough for welfare, preventing them from getting out of the situation.
We do not mandate a living wage, and people who's market wages are below their living wages will die.
Out of those, I find the first most appealing. The welfare thing is closer to what we do now, but if we're going to put taxpayer dollars to save lives, why not do it in a way that allows the person to improve their situation? If we give them welfare, they will be cut off if they make a certain amount of income, but the living wage will always be a minimum for them.
Do people deserve a free education, up to and including, a doctorate? Is it a basic right? If not, why not? If so, why?
Education, yes, possibly not a doctorate. Not everyone needs a doctorate, and if we try to make it so that everyone was able to get a doctorate, regardless of their academic ability, the degree would likely become worth significantly less than it is now (and as a result, newer degrees even higher than a doctorate would likely be invented).
Do people have a responsibility to help those around them? Is it a basic obligation? If not, why not? Is so, why?
This is generally something we should strive to do as human beings. In many cases, it is more effective to put our resources into the government in order to solve problems, rather than each of us going about our own way of solving problems.
It might not be a basic obligation, but it's necessary to at least some extent for society to survive.
I promise I won't be critical of what people may say here as I am genuinely interested in why people believe what they do and what kind of economic system/political system others think would serve mankind better than capitalism.
Here's your chance. Convince me.
In no particular order...
The problem with capitalism is that it requires constant expansion to work, and generally assumes that people act rationally.
The problem with socialism is that it requires people who would benefit from it to be rational enough to realize it would benefit them, and it also generally assumes that people act morally.
The problem with command economics is that it requires the planners to act both rationally and morally.
The problem with feudalism is that the lord is overcompensated for his job (military service, if that), and the peasants are undercompensated for their job (supporting the lord through agriculture) and unable to better themselves as people due to their feudal obligations to be peasants. Even if this could theoretically be alleviated by the lord being moral enough to give his peasants a decent life and not enrich himself at their expense, it is simply fundamentally unfair for one class of people to have economic opportunities that another class doesn't, simply because of their birthright.
The problem with subsidence economies is that few people can do more than provide food for themselves and their families, and as a result people are generally locked into a social class (although to be fair, this class is shared among all people). Further, a natural disaster could cause the death of the entire society.
I find problems in every system I can think of. In general, either people are required to be rational, people are required to be moral, or there is a defect inherent in the system itself (ie, the feudal class structure).
Therefore, I tend to focus more on social issues rather than economic issues, for neither of these problems can be compensated for without a good deal of social engineering.
We can encourage people to act rationally and morally, but we cannot make a system expand forever, and nor can we solve socioeconomic defects that are inherent in a system. As a result, since I figure it is possible to make people moral and rational, socialism is the system we should strive for (a command economy could also theoretically work, but it is easier, in my opinion, for a large group of people to know their own needs than for a small group of people to understand the needs of each and every large group they are responsible for).
