Bessner's "freedom from" homelessness analogy fails when one acknowledges that functionally ending homelessness requires a coercive state willing to permanently institutionalize persons with severe mental illness and chronic substance use disorder who engage in unlawful or anti-social behavior in public spaces. Reducing the number of persons experiencing homelessness requires restricting their "freedom to" live on the streets in places with excellent, year-round weather. The only people who get to experience negative liberty in this scenario are housed people who get to enjoy freedom from tripping over homeless persons and their excrement when they leave their homes to shop, work, or recreate. Bessner misunderstands the causes of chronic homelessness and wasted an opportunity to defend his argument. There are plenty of advanced capitalist democracies where homelessness is not a problem, like Singapore and Japan. Or, are these not democracies because they enforce the rule of law?
One element of those societies that should be considered is the concept of “loose” vs. “tight” social order. The US is quite loose as is Italy. Countries like Japan, Singapore and Germany are categorized as tight. Those in tight societies tend to follow rules and social mores far more whereas citizens in looser societies pay far less mind to such things. This also contributes to differences seen in homelessness between capitalist societies.
Bessner's "freedom from" homelessness analogy fails when one acknowledges that functionally ending homelessness requires a coercive state willing to permanently institutionalize persons with severe mental illness and chronic substance use disorder who engage in unlawful or anti-social behavior in public spaces. Reducing the number of persons experiencing homelessness requires restricting their "freedom to" live on the streets in places with excellent, year-round weather. The only people who get to experience negative liberty in this scenario are housed people who get to enjoy freedom from tripping over homeless persons and their excrement when they leave their homes to shop, work, or recreate. Bessner misunderstands the causes of chronic homelessness and wasted an opportunity to defend his argument. There are plenty of advanced capitalist democracies where homelessness is not a problem, like Singapore and Japan. Or, are these not democracies because they enforce the rule of law?
One element of those societies that should be considered is the concept of “loose” vs. “tight” social order. The US is quite loose as is Italy. Countries like Japan, Singapore and Germany are categorized as tight. Those in tight societies tend to follow rules and social mores far more whereas citizens in looser societies pay far less mind to such things. This also contributes to differences seen in homelessness between capitalist societies.