[...], there are some areas of the economy where it simply doesn't profit the human race to make decisions based on materialism.
The thing is, materialism, along with choice, provides incentive for satisfying the customer. Government is a monopoly, and "buying" its services is compulsory, and that's why it's far, far more dangerous, both in theory and in practice, than business will ever be. So at a minimum you'd have to inject artificial incentives into local governments to get them to perform, and serve their clientele well.
At a minimum I would think that would include making it no harder to fire someone than in the private sector. Maybe we should even elevate "public service" to a more important role of responsibility in comparison, and have fines and/or jail for even routine types of poor performance. I mean it. It's kind of a sacred trust with the public. Don't like it, don't take a job in public service; go get a regular job, and then you only have to excel as much as that company requires. Government should be held to a higher standard, not a lower one.
And it would also probably mean no unionization for them. Not only does it not make sense, that you need protection from the enforcer of fairness itself, but when you're a servant of the public good you shouldn't be out for yourself, and trying to get all kinds of goodies that the public doesn't even get, like pensions and supposed 40+ hours of *overtime*, every week. Public service should be a mindset. Afterall, you're overhead. You're not producing anything in/for the economy, you're just in a supporting role when in public service. That should be humbling and never forgotten. Like the rich, government workers live off the taxpayers' laboring.
Those five areas are air, water, food, shelter, and health care.
It looks like first you're saying these should be run by private charity and coop based arrangement, and then you say county or city government.
And isn't 5 really too few? Basic needs in modern life also include:
6) sewage and trash dispersal
7) heat in many regions of the U.S. (and air-conditioning in regions where temperature highs can be life-threatening otherwise, like that year in France)
8) electricity
9) phone/911 service
10) a means of transportation, either public or private, to get to workplaces
11) and increasingly, Internet access
Also add dental and corrective vision care, since those are typically separated from health care, and yet they are basic needs in life.
There can be luxury markets in each of these areas above that, [...]
Ideally, forced charity (i.e. government collecting taxes beyond those for normal operations to use for subsidizing things for others) would give way to true charity, and the rich would fund the most basic level of these basic services. Or just do like big pharma, where you pay for your medicines unless you're really poor and then they ship them to you free or dirt cheap. When my oldest living grandmother was still alive, she needed multiple medicines but she had no money, yet she got them anyway. She had to write to the companies every now and then. But I bet they're better at avoiding fraud than governments, because of the incentives.
But to get the rich to take this over from government, their taxes would have to be dropped drastically, and the whole mindset of society would have to change. Right now we all expect government to handle everything. (And poorly.) There'd have to be a huge public awareness compaign, about the switchover, and that you are responsible for your neighbor now basically, and if those who can afford to help don't, there'll be raw sewage backing up and people dying in the streets and society will collapse, so you better frickin' work together and get it done. This country was founded on the idea of much self-governance, so it would be time to grow up and largely self-govern. At the level of small communities, as you've said.
Note, NOT a dollar amount, an entirely separate calorie based currency.
That's an amazingly excellect idea in and of itself. Nutrient based as well, as you alluded to. Probably also best administered locally/in the context of what's available locally.
