Ah, the Trials of Being an Altruist
Say I bought a fancy pair of shoes for my son. In light of the one-tribe calculus of interests, I should probably give these shoes to someone who doesn’t have any. I do research and find a child in a poor part of Chicago who needs shoes to walk to school every day. So, I take them off my son (replacing them with Walmart tennis shoes) and head off to the impoverished Westside. On the way, I see a newspaper story about five children who are malnourished in Cambodia. Now I can’t give the shoeless Chicago child the shoes, because I should sell the shoes for money and use the money to get food for the five malnourished kids. On my way to sell the shoes, I remember that my son has an important job interview for a clean-water nonprofit organization and if he gets the job, he’ll be able to help save whole villages from contaminated water. But he won’t get the job if he shows up in Walmart tennis shoes. As I head back home, it dawns on me that for many people in the developing world, Walmart tennis shoes are truly luxurious when compared with burlap sack shoes, and since needs always trump luxuries I’ll need to sell the tennis shoes too; and on, and on, and on.
Stephen Asma from the NYT.
I’m a firm believer in the Bootstraps theory of welfare and social services provision.
If you’re down trodden, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps rather than ask the government or a neighbor for help. Next, pick up your own kids and help them become resilient citizens. Teach them the Bootstraps theory. Next, help those around you or those you interact with — choose your beneficiaries wisely, possibly helping them through your church.
If you do nothing more than make sure you and your family are performing well, you’ve nonetheless done an immense service to mankind.
If we would all do this rather than rely on government; or pander to government to tax people in order to give us a job helping people, society would be better off.
Yes, it’s tough isn’t it?
Bruce, they deserve it.
Stephen Asma NYT; “Gandhi’s recommendation — that we must have no close friendships or exclusive loves because these will introduce loyalty and favoritism, preventing us from loving everyone equally’. . .
similar to government-run medicine – equal rations of healthcare for all without close patient-physician relationships.
Dorothy Calabrese MD
Allergy & Immunology San Clemente, CA
nothing intellectual or philosophical here, but if you buy shoes from toms, the shoe situation takes care of itself…win/win all around!
I’ve read this before. It was in a biography chronicling the adventures of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former director of the IMF.
Interesting to pair this with the post below on obesity and mortality. If it is hard for us as individuals to determine who is worthy of our charity, it is vastly harder for “society” to so determine. In fact, it is flatly impossible.
Great intentions do not lead to rational actions.
This is an interesting — if not rambling piece to read. I agree with Greg. It is difficult to discern who is worthy of assistance and who will use the help to succeed. There are plenty of examples from government programs to use as case studies. Aid for aspiring college students is an example. Some students who otherwise could not have attended college will receive help and go on to achieve great things. In other cases, students who could not succeed in any college program are tempted to take out student loans and find themselves years further behind on job skills and thousands of dollars in debt. Yet, we trust colleges (the institutions receiving the funds) to decide whether a student can succeed. When they fail, we are prodded with more calls to boost financial aid. All public assistance programs should be accountable for those they help. The bureaucracies that administer the programs should also be accountable for efficiency they achieve in providing public good.
Help who you can, when and how you can. However, this aid should never be at the expense of your family.
St. Paul puts it this way: “Moreover, anyone who does not provide for his own people, especially for his family, has disowned the faith and is worse than an unbeliever (1 Tim 5:8 CJB).”