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Moral foundations seems like a better fit for most of these issues.
The main area for both conflict and mistake is economics. Most people want to have a bigger slice of the pie for themselves and their fellow class members. The interests of the person who wants a cheap employee or servant and the person trying to get an entry level job are not the same. The interests of the person who wants government housing in a nice part of town, and the person who already owns a house in the nice part of town are not the same. Many people also have bad ideas about how to get where they're trying to go.
I agree with you in general, but I need to nuance on this point. At that specific level of politics, their interests are perhaps not the same, but in the grand scheme of things, I think a critical mass, regardless of social class, race, gender differences, would agree to make some compromises in the optimal assignment of resources for them or the groups they associate with to live in a country where everyone can have decent access to jobs, reasonable housing, education, healthcare, etc... What objection would anyone have to everywhere being the nice part of town? So when you zoom out to that level, I think it is truly mistake theory. And that really is I think the distinction between high trust and low trust societies. Mutual trust in strangers is really a self sustaining miracle; when enough people believe that this critical mass exists, then it does. When not enough people do, when you stop believing that the other guy is willing to make compromises in your favor so that we can all live in a nice place, then suddenly you must start strategically defecting on the arrangement to make sure you and your family are not the ones to be dumped on constantly.
Hence why western remote work expats living like kings in gated enclaves in poor countries is a relatively new and marginal phenomenon; because maximizing your own resources when you're surrounded by violence and poverty still sucks, and it takes a special kind of sociopath to just shut themselves off to all of it around them. And why high class, high education people in dysfunctional countries still often want to move to functional countries when they have the opportunity, even if it means their education is not going to recognized and they will be relegated to unskilled work. While you have more stuff, maybe some servants, being rich in a low trust society is not as fulfilling as being average in a high trust society.
It’s not just emotionally unfulfilling, it’s dangerous. Being rich can protect you from a lot of the day-to-day violence. But if the whole country tumbles into the abyss because of civil war, foreign invasion, state collapse or ethnic conflict, the gated community isn’t going to do much other than make you a target.
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In what way is the meaning of that sentence different from if you deleted the word "access"?
The meaning is altered in that a very salient objection can be raised that these things should not be given to those who don't work for them. But that's not different groups' interest competing, it's still mistake theory. It hits a crucial mistake people believe others are making; everyone should be in a nice part of town, but how many ressources should be allocated to helping people who don't help themselves (and their community), even if just to keep all parts of town nice? At what point does those ressources create incentives for freeloading and ruin that part of town?
Ok, but then in what sense does that inspire the altruism you think it requires? Broadly speaking, "you can get healthcare if you work/pay for it." already is the selfish position. Like, I can see how a library card might be giving someone "access to education" - you give them something, which gives them the opportunity to get a bigger thing. But I dont see "leverage" like that in housing or healthcare - those policies are just giving people various amounts of the thing itself with various levels of means-testing. And Im not sure in what sense you think people dont have access to jobs, unless its an immigration thing.
Im not arguing for competing interests here, I just latched onto that word.
I would formulate it more like "I want good healthcare to be available and affordable to everyone". Seems unselfish, and a rather universal proposition. I don't think it's altruism necessarily, people want to live in a place where they don't have to be driven in armored cars from gated enclave to gated enclave through a wasteland filled with roving gangs of dying sick panhandlers. Seeing only healthy people around me has value not because I'm altruistic, but cause it's more pleasant than the alternative, and for that I'm willing to compromise on maybe the speed or the cost of my care.
I think they do too in the west, broadly speaking, but it's something that good or bad policy can influence (by running employers out of town, for instance), and that a vast majority would probably agree they want everyone to have.
I just dont see how this would boil down to anything other than paying for peoples healthcare. And if youre gonna do that, its a bit weird to say youre "giving them access to healthcare", instead of just "giving them healthcare".
Healthcare price is not just a fixed amount that has to be paid, it's reactive to policy and social factors, to policies influencing supply and demand of healthcare, to the legal environment around it, to the general health of the population, to the hygenic habits of the population, to socioeconomical factors, to genetics, to economies of scale, etc...
I think everyone, left and right, would be satisfied with the outcome of "healthcare is very available and almost everyone can afford it with the few remaining edge cases unable to pay being either taken care of by the government or by charity".
Whether you get there by single payer or not is a huge part of the question, but it's not a zero sum game.
Well, originally you were talking about how its not a zero-sum game because people want others to be healthy, and that wouldnt be relevant to my point. The non-zero-sum youre talking about now is general efficiency improvements and economic growth, which, sure, but thats not really what comes to mind with "access to healthcare". I mean, if you said people need access to money, everyone would notice it sounds weird - but all the same reasons you gave apply.
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Regular reminder that "healthcare" is not a monolithic thing. It's usually a question of "how much healthcare". Bandaids and aspirin are "healthcare". So is a novel $1M treatment. There is a huge, huge spectrum in between. One could have access to and be able to afford vast swaths of types of healthcare, but some folks want to say, "...yeah, but if they don't also have this, then they don't have 'access to healthcare'." One simply cannot put everything in a single bucket and then make a judgment as to whether people have 'access' to that entire bucket. One must necessarily start thinking about types and gradations of healthcare.
One example I like to give is what the medical response "should" be to someone who has a bit of soreness in their wrist. Something feels "not quite right", but it doesn't necessarily have any other significant indications of anything major going on. For the vast majority of people, the answer should probably be some form of, "Maybe heat/ice/whatever (I don't actually know or care what details), maybe an OTC painkiller if you want. Come back if it gets worse or doesn't get any better after X weeks." But if you're an MVP quarterback and you're nearing the playoffs, they might want to do an MRI and this and that and this and that (again, don't know, don't care about the details). Determining any information about the likely progression, whether it's likely to get worse if they play in the next non-playoff game, maybe tailoring what you do in hopes to shave even a week or two off of the full recovery time is immensely valuable to them. What is the One Monolithic "Healthcare" in this situation, such that we should ask whether it is very available and almost everyone can afford it? There is no such thing.
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