If we live in a would where we accept that we allow some folks to disrupt complicated social programs, then those aspects of the social programs will disappear or the programs themselves will disappear.
This is exactly what the essay describes as happening. When someone on a bench disrupts the service and we will not remove the person creating the disruption, then we will end up removing the bench.
We can clutch our pearls all we like here, but people will stop using a social service they are uncomfortable using. And when they don't want to use it, they will stop funding it. As long as we live in a democracy, this will be in issue.
Why does society have an obligation to assist and protect people who don't contribute to society? If you feel some moral imperative to assist some druggie slobbering in his own shit then by all means you do do, but don't rope me into it. The only people with any obligation to assist are their families or those whose religions command them to do so. Neither involve me.
The Earth has lots of resources that are privately owned. The process by which these resources become privately owned has no satisfactory libertarian justification ("land and oil become yours when you mix them with your labor", really?) If the profit from these resources was divided equally, everyone would have enough for food and shelter. The people who have less than that are essentially victims of theft. Society should first pay these people the fair share that was stolen from them, and only then start telling them about their duties to society.
There is a distinction between pro- and anti-social behaviors beyond capitalist and socialist systems. You can have anti-social behavior in both systems. You can have pro-social behaviors in both systems. This should be fairly straight forward.
Not accommodating someone disrupting a service does not mean we need to be absolute pricks about it. This happens every day in public libraries, public parks, public toilets, and public transit systems. Simple because a need exists, doesn't mean the library or transit system does not also exist to meet needs.
If you think that socialism -- alone -- will end homelessness, I would ask you to check your history books. There was homelessness and vagrancy in the USSR. There are plenty of folks in San Francisco who refuse shelter when offered: https://x.com/LondonBreed/status/1734350588899717423 ... we are currently experiencing a move in large parts of the west from high-trust to low-trust societies. Much of the issues around homelessness, lack of housing, and refusal to provide adequate shelter space stem from folks engaging in low-trust behaviors, treating property as a zero-sum good, and cities as places that should exist in a type of stasis... rather than as communities that must continuously grow and change to meet needs. These low-trust issues certainly can persist in low-trust socialist societies as well.
