Are Some Conservatives Trying to Tell me "Socialism Doesn't Work"?

New blog on the kid : Are Some Conservatives Trying to Tell me "Socialism Doesn't Work"? · I came across Edwin Benson's lampooning of Panera Cares again · HGL'S F.B. WRITINGS : Is Anticapitalism a Condemned Socialist Heresy?

Here is an article on TFP:

Return to Order : This is How Panera Found Out That Socialism Does Not Work
By Edwin Benson
http://www.returntoorder.org/2019/02/this-is-how-panera-found-out-that-socialism-does-not-work/

A recent article by John Ellis brought the news that Panera has closed its last “Pay What You Want” restaurant.

There is a huge problem with this.

• "Pay What You Want" is not socialism.
• Donativo (also known as "Pay What You Want") is how the Camino de Santiago Pilgrim Hostels work outside Galicia (in Galicia they really are state run, and for free, strictly, which is socialism).

So, Edwin Benson is showing a confusion of thought and an insult to Catholic institutions (the pilgrimage to Santiago being one) which is to be expected from ... Protestant Capitalists.

Now, why exactly is this relevant to me?

• I have used the "Pay What You Want" principle when singing on streets (all street singers tend to do so) - which I lately can't, since my voice is suffering from colds;
• I am using the "Pay What You Want" principle when promoting my blogs;
• but most important, I am proposing to print my blog contents commercially and for those doing so to send me voluntary royalties, that is, the royalty business with this printing and selling would involve the "Pay What You Want" principle - note well, without in the least obliging them to do the same when selling copies.*

I have, after this proposal, been treated very cavalierly by "Conservatives" who, being Catholics, would be expected to know better.

It seems, some conservatives have a deeper loyalty to Capitalism and the Capitalist, Puritan and Protestant version of "Prudence" than to Catholicism (which my blogs promote).

I make the same observation BOTH on people who treat me as a fool AND on people preferring to honour me as a saint, as a new poverello.

Now one little observation on the difference between me (or rather a theoretical printer taking my offer) and Panera.

• Panera is trying to use "Pay What You Want" without enjoying such an arrangement themselves.
• I am offering printers to enjoy "Pay What You Want" without them needing to provide the same arrangement to customers.

I think anyone can see the difference between getting too little payment one day and being stuck because the ones you owe money don't make the same arrangement, and being able to yourself pay as little as you want, on one item (namely royalties to me) while charging others (normally paying book shop customers).

Now, why would this arrangement (if used) leave me in the mud as it did Panera?

The other side of it is, I am offering no one a monopoly on doing so. Anyone who payed me too little for my livelihood would be offset by someone else paying sufficient.

Here is a little insight into the real economics of the business:

Each restaurant was designed to sustain itself, but the restaurants weren’t financially viable. The Portland-based Panera Cares was reportedly only recouping between 60 and 70 percent of its total costs. The losses were attributed students who “mobbed” the restaurant and ate without paying, as well as homeless patrons who visited the restaurant for every meal of the week. The location eventually limited the homeless to “a few meals a week.”

“We had to help them understand that this is a café of shared responsibility and not a handout,” Shaich said in a 2011 interview about the Portland location. “It can’t serve as a shelter and we can’t have community organizations sending everybody down.”

Detroit Eater : Panera’s Utopic Pay-What-You-Want Restaurant Dream Is Dead
by Brenna Houck | @EaterDetroit | Feb 5, 2019, 5:16pm EST
https://www.eater.com/2019/2/5/18212499/panera-cares-closing-pay-what-you-can-restaurant

So, what was the overall problem?

• A restaurant which "recouped" (new word to me) 60 - 70 % of total costs had no back-up from others (including the Panera restaurants which had no such arrangement), since each was "designed to sustain itself" - something that the customers might not know all of them, many perhaps thinking that they could sponge on paying customers of other restaurants by Panera;
• students seem to be more and more encouraged to selfish behaviour;
• community organisations are using homeless as an army of locusts (and many allow themselves to be so used), seeking out the best options for them, spreading the word to all, and that means closing down many opportunities too.

These latter ones are really kind of socialists and they are killing lots of free goodwill.

Why would this not necessarily be a problem to me via my several editors?

• One bad payer, who either was consciusly sponging on me or didn't make sufficient money himself would be offset by others, as long as the ones taking the offer were not limited;
• while students involve many who would sponge, this is not the case for all;
• the homeless are not interested in what I write, mostly.

Do you realise how many of both homeless and formerly such in Paris are involved in AA? Do you realise how much AA (at least in Paris, but arguably lots of places) are believers in DiaMat? If you have been following the blogs, you know that I am very much not so.

While some Catholics who think themselves Conservatives for snubbing my "Pay What You Want" principle are doing their part to isolate me, others have other reasons to do so, like Mark Shea (who could arguably point to lots of working "Pay What You Want" cafés, as well as to cafés and restaurants where customers are encouraged to pay a "pending coffee" for a poorer customer, invented in Napoli in 2011) who thinks I am too rightwing, like any Communist who thinks I am too rightwing, like any Atheist who considers me a Conservative Christian ... and some Conservative Protestants are doing their part because they are reviving the idea that papacy over history is the Antichrist, which I obviously differ from. An antipope may be an Antichrist or even the False Prophet, but papacy as such was instituted by Christ (sth where also some Conservative Orthodox would boycott me for being Papist).

So, I could really use some real Conservative Catholics starting to behave like that and starting a startup edition enterprise in order to make money (and send me some) from the printing and selling of my texts.

This being so, I morally owe some to left wingers. If they should not feel like boycotting my message on items like being against abortion or believing Genesis 1 to 11, so much the better. Or if they'd like to share this criticism of a particular kind of Conservatives who are not exactly what I am Conservative for, on a few issues, like this one. They have so far excluded themselves from my offer, they are not excluded by me.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St. Leo, bishop and martyr
14.III.2019

* Overall conditions, applicable without modification for texts I write myself (this one would arguably be seen as quoting moderately from Edwin Benson and Brenna Houck, not as having them as co-writers to the copy-right were divided):

hglwrites : A little note on further use conditions
https://hglwrites.wordpress.com/a-little-note-on-further-use-conditions/

Extra provisions for the case of co-authors (as with fan fiction, as with dialogued posts):

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Copyright issues on blogposts with shared copyright
http://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/p/copyright-issues-on-blogposts-with.html

Taking contact with me is preferrable, but optional, some might need discretion.