You know, I posted this a few days ago, but didn’t post what I thought of it. I do think that it’s pretty crummy that some people think that aid should be needs-tested. The rationale, mostly on the right, is that giving out assistance after someone misbehaves creates a “moral hazard”, that is, a chance people will exploit the help in an attempt to behave without consequence. And this, of course, is absolutely true – there are some people who do exploit help to allow themselves to avoid taking consequences. Any system that is created can be exploited, and some people live by, literally have as the method of their living, exploiting others.
But someone who’s starving and cold on the street is starving and cold on the street, and it’s also true that we have an obligation to our fellow human beings to help those who need help. When someone collapses in front of you, you don’t know whether that person was on drugs or just had a heart attack: you need to help them. Our human society works because we are social animals who factor the needs of others into our decision-making. (This is as useful for robots as it is for humans, so I suspect this is more than just a human-bleeding-heart thing, and is instead a universal property of successful intelligent civilizations).
And, not surprisingly, I know many rich people who understand this. It isn’t a big issue; many members of my family are well off and they didn’t need to be told to contribute to the needy or to step up providing food and water when there was a disaster, they just did it.
SO, back to the quote:
What is it about rich people that makes them think they can starve poor people into good behavior?
David Wong
I know the answer to this.
Because that kind of thinking works on them.
I know a lot of people who are affluent. Some from inheritance, some from hard work, some from a combination of the above. Not all of them managed to keep it. The ones that did were frugal – perhaps not all the time, not on everything, but when it came down to it, they were always worried about running out of money, even if they had a lot of it.
They knew if they behaved the way that “the money” wanted them to, they’d have none of it left.
Many rich people behave responsibly only because they fear the consequences of their own misbehavior. And, I think, that’s why they’re so concerned about “moral hazard:” they know if they didn’t have a backstop, they would behave terribly irresponsibly.
Well, fine. Good for them, if that keeps them being responsible.
But that’s no excuse to project their experience out to the whole world.
If someone is sick, homeless, or otherwise in need, we should help them. That’s what humans do. That’s how our civilization has become such an amazing success: we live in a world where life events can sweep away our entire foundation, and when those things happen, we all help each other stand back up.
As it should be.
-the Centaur
