[akramachamarei]

> If you desperately need something, but a rich guy kinda-sorta wants it, rich guy gets it if he's willing to pay more.

I share this concern about access to scarce goods, though I'm not sure what these scarcity catastrophes look like in practice. To generalize your example, if there is some scarce resource, at most some number N of the wealthiest demanders (which can include corporations such as unions or communes, not just individuals) can access it. I certainly agree that this is a failing of a capitalism, but it's not clear to me how you would propose adjusting it's tenets to recover these drawbacks, and at what additional cost. Like, if the issue is we want to ensure everyone can get what they need to survive, I imagine you can't allow buyers and sellers to negotiate prices, there has to be some neutral third party to do this. And if this modification to prices disincentivizes extraction, production, or delivery of these goods how you would force people to do those jobs.

I hope this doesn't sound like a strawman, I'm just honestly unclear on what should replace what are seemingly basic and natural rights, namely property, physical autonomy, contracts, whatever. I won't pretend that in e.g. the US these rights haven't been abridged whilst the sky remains suspended above us, but my imagination fails me on the question what it looks like when we shave away more of those rights, versus restoring them. Though I'd also imagine that your policy prescriptions would probably include both abridgements and restorations of these rights, so don't let me speak for you.