I begin with the obvious: charity is a good thing and people who help others from the goodness of their hearts are good people. But behind the light of charity is often a terrible darkness. This darkness often remains unseen, for attention is focused on the light.
In general, the media delights in stories of charity and it is right of them to praise the truly charitable. While presented as feel-good stories, they often hard a horror behind them—a horror that can be revealed with just a bit of thought. For example, consider the popular stories of school employees donating their sick days to a colleague who is undergoing treatment for cancer and has run out of sick days. The co-workers who donate their sick days are certainly to be lauded as good people; they are making a sacrifice to help another person. This is the light of the story. But a little thought reveals the darkness behind the light: the sick person, who might have been working for decades, needs the charity because they do not have enough sick days to cover a serious illness. It could be pointed out that such serious illnesses are unusual and that everything worked out because other people gave up their sick days.
While it is true that serious illnesses are uncommon, they are obviously not unheard of and a proper sick leave system would take that into account. As for other people donating sick days, this is problematic because they are then putting themselves at risk by giving up their sick days. Also, a sick leave system should not depend on a person’s luck or ability to get sympathy via social media. As such, while such stories do tell us about good people doing good, they also show that something terrible is going on with sick leave. If these were rare cases involving slackers, then that would be one thing. But these cases involve people who are working hard.
Continuing with another medical example, consider the use of GoFundMe to raise funds for medical expenses. This practice is now so common that the site has its own guide to the process. Giving to such fundraisers is certainly kind and stories about successful ones make for excellent feel good stories. I have given to several of them, sometimes for friends who have exhausted their insurance and savings and sometimes for strangers whose stories caught my attention.
While stories of successful fundraisers focus on the light, they generally fail to note the darkness. One obvious problem is that even people who have insurance, who have worked hard and who have done everything right (such as a person I went to school with) can end up with crushing medical debt. That they need to turn to public fundraising despite all this is harsh condemnation of the existing system. A second obvious problem is that while news stories focus on the successes, there is the fact that not all the fundraisers succeed or are enough to cover expenses. That the ability to pay for medical expenses can depend on social media savvy and the appeal of one’s story seems arbitrary and unfair.
It could be objected that only slackers and people who are bad at planning need to turn to GoFundMe—they are just trying to sponge of a gullible public. I will certainly not deny that some people are running scams, nor will I deny that some people get into medical debt because of poor life choices. However, as noted above, people who have worked hard, who got insurance, and who made good decisions can still end up having to appeal to strangers for assistance, because there are people creating and maintaining a brutal, predatory system. What is needed is something that both Democrats and Republicans have called for—a better healthcare system.
Moving away from medical charity, one might think that post-disaster charity has no dark side. After all, people who have suffered due to a fire, a hurricane or flooding are surely not the victims of a human-designed system. While they are the victims of natural disasters, some of these have been contributed to by climate change—hence, humans are partially responsible for creating the need for charity. There is also the fact that, as with medial expenses, people lack the resources to address natural disasters even if they have insurance, have worked hard and have done everything right. One reason for this is that wealth is highly concentrated and hence most people lack the resources to deal with such situations. The state (people acting collectively) does help, but it tends to have very limited resources to address such ever more common events. This is in part due to spending choices and in part due to decisions about revenue. As such, people are ever more dependent on the aid of others to deal with disasters. Once again, those who are best at social media appeals do best, while others fare less well. Solutions would include addressing the causes of disasters and having more public resources available to deal with them.
For there to be charity, there must be those who suffer and lack the resources to assuage their own suffering. Why people lack these resources is of considerable concern. In general, the dark side of charity is the dark side of our civilization: a system designed by people to hyper concentrate wealth means that most people lack the resources to address medical and natural disasters. There are also people who are so lacking in resources that every day is effectively a disaster. Hence, they must rely on appealing to others.
It could and has been argued that this system is a good one; that having a hyper-concentration of wealth and resources is better for everyone. This seems to be obviously untrue—it is not better for those who must rely on charity even when they have done everything they were supposed to do.
While some might be tempted to straw man my view and insist that I want to take all the money from the rich and distribute it among the poor, this is not true. Rather, what I advocate is fairly modest—that there should be real effort to adjust the system we have created so that more people can have adequate resources and that dealing with such things as medical problems does not require begging for money or pleading for donated sick days.
Mike, it is certainly possible to transform the U.S. into a country with a more generous social safety net. However, if you run the numbers you will see that it will require huge tax increases on the middle class. We will end up with a tax structure similar to those of Western European countries. We will also have the sluggish economy and high unemployment of the European economies. We will also have to drastically cut the size of our military. This will leave a power vacuum in the world which will be filled by China. This will allow China to straddle the world as a unitary global hegemon, and will likely set back the cause of human rights and dignity by decades or even centuries.
This is what you are calling for, so I guess you view the above scenario as a feature and not a bug.
We don’t need more safety net so much as fewer people being pushed off buildings. If wages were moderately better and costs moderately less, then we’d need a lot less net.
Your “Darkness behind the light” is that charity is needed at all.
First of all, let’s make it clear that social welfare, in its various forms, is charity: it is the charity mandated by the elected representatives for the people of the country.
Charity is needed because being an organic life form sucks. We all require food, clean water, shelter, safety, a place to rest in peace. At some point, we all get sick and need medical help, or at least nursing, since what we moderns would call medical help beyond bandaging and bone-setting is barely a century old.
Genetics, epigenetics, and above all, luck determine our medical needs.
You really have to look at the existing facts rather than keep blindly asking for more money in ignorance. You need to start accounting for how the existing money is allocated and used. Already, according to the OECD, the US social spend on healthcare as a proportion of GDP is the second-highest in the OECD (and probably the world), just a fraction behind France:
https://www1.compareyourcountry.org/social-expenditure/en/2/all/default
The US government already allocates more on the provision of healthcare than Sweden, more than the UK, more than Canada, more than whatever country you are thinking to model it on.
You need to stop saying “we need more” without thinking, and start looking at how best to allocate the resources already available. Any time I started to look into health policy and costs in the US, I bounced off, Even at blog-comment level, it’s too opaque and too complicated to find a coherent starting point.
I do agree, looking from outside, that US public health policy is a mess. I don’t understand it well enough even to point at the main reasons it’s a mess. I can say vague generalities like it’s a mess because of special interest influence and legislation, but that doesn’t lead to actionable points.
If you want to use thought, and words, and rationality to improve the situation, you already know the way. Dig in to the information, find inconsistencies and inefficiencies, highlight them, form up with other people to create political pressure.
In lawless and corrupt countries, more aid is routinely drained off by warlords and corrupt officials. If you just get more money for health in the US, it will be drained off by special interests, bureaucrats, local politicians, and people around the provision of actual medicine rather than the performance of it.
Exactly; reality has a lot of suck. Which is why people should not add more suck by exploiting others to the point that they need charity because of that suck.
We’ve been over this and over this and over this for years and years and years. It’s the most damaging fallacy in history that in order for one person to get richer, another must get poorer. Wealth does not come at the expense of poverty. Why do you INSIST on perpetuating such a damaging fallacy? Why must YOU add to the suck, even in many ways ORIGINATE the suck in order to satisfy your own moral vanity?
Yes, there is a lot of suck in this world. You stare a bit of it in the face every morning in your bathroom mirror. Why don’t YOU try to do something about it? Stop perpetuating fallacious economic backwards thinking.
a system designed by people to hyper-concentrate wealth
Sorry, but I have to comment again on this point specifically. I know from experience that it is likely to be useless, but I do keep trying. I have a not entirely rational feeling that if only people who believe it could see just how deeply wrong it is, we could have more productive discussions and, as a result, better public policies.
(Nice Argument-by-Adjective slipped in there with the “hyper-“, btw.)
Saying that the concentration of wealth was designed by people is exactly as false as saying that the pattern of craters on the moon was designed by people.
The concentration of wealth, the distribution of crater sizes oin the moon, the masses of stars in a cluster, the shape of a sand dune, and many other observations in physics, culture, biology, are all caused by the inevitable relationships of different entities interacting with the same thing, each different, but each under the influence of the same force, whether that force is gravity or greed. See Power Laws.
I believe that every human society of more than tiny numbers – say, a few thousand – has exhibited the same pattern. There may have been some totalitarian dictatorships in which the pattern was temporarily disrupted, but I’m not aware of any in which it did not re-form with time. Even in the Communist terror eras, we saw this – although the wealth may not have been measured in the official currency.
It is possible to affect the exponent, and constrain the space, to change the shape of the curve and relationships between the top and bottom of the curve.
I think that should be done in our First World societies at the moment, btw. I think it is entirely reasonable to sacrifice some overall gain in wealth to reduce inequality somewhat. I think the problem is currently accelerating, due to computers and robots, and will increase further (the actual word for a smooth increase in acceleration is, oddly enough, “jerk”) with the introduction of AI to routine problem solving in various domains. In all of history before the Industrial Revolution, owners of land and other productive assets depended on attracting workers for production. People have been increasingly replaced by machines ever since. I expect, if the world does not experience a major disaster or war, that in 50 years the number of people needed for production will decline precipitously.
Amazon still needs people here to pick and pack, for now, but look at the rest of it:
https://youtu.be/cLVCGEmkJs0?t=23
I have designed computer systems to run warehouses – without robots – and I know just how much more efficient this warehouse must be than any I have worked on. Purely human warehouses, giving employment to many people, could not compete. This way is better.
This inequality problem is not going away. I am actually on your side in this. But when you attribute the problem to some economic rule designed in by people, you might as well be attributing it to evil spirits sent by the volcano-god; I can’t discuss sensibly with you the mechanisms to change the ratios and constrain the space.
CT, why do you believe economic inequality is a problem? Does it bother you that grad students are poor when you know that in 20 years they will be just fine? Do you really want to go down the road of having the government decide what is a “fair” distribution of wealth?
Personally, I believe the focus should be on eliminating poverty and making sure people have adequate health care and access to good schools.
Also, how do you think allowing millions and million of unskilled immigrants into the U.S. affects economic inequality?
CT, why do you believe economic inequality is a problem?
I did not say economic inequality is a problem. Why do you say I said it was?
I said economic inequality is unavoidable. If it was avoidable, removing inequality for even as little as a decade would be a catastrophe on the order of a Third World War with nuclear weapons or a global pandemic of some particularly nasty hemorrhagic fever. Fortunately, we are safe from that.
However, that doesn’t mean that the specific patterns and ratios of inequality in the US – or anywhere else – now are optimum.
Economic inequality is like the voltage – electrical charge inequality – that makes the light come on when you flick the switch. But more voltage is not necessarily better, for a given situation.
The GINI index, measuring overall inequality, is a very blunt instrument, but it’s a start. The US has moved from a GINI index in the mid 30s in the 1940s-1980s to around 45 today, joining the well known economic powerhouse states (/sarc) of the sub-Sahara and Middle East, while Europe and Canada and Japan have stayed in the 30s. The GINI index is clearly not linearly related to overall economic growth, since US GINI kept growing through the US recession in 2008-.
I have a bunch of tabs open now for reference, but I don’t want to fall foul of the link checker, and they all say more or less the same thing, so I’ll pick this one:
https://www.chartbookofeconomicinequality.com/inequality-by-country/usa/
The long term problem with too much economic inequality is not directly economic, but social. When people lose faith in the economic systems within which they live, they see no downside to overthrowing them altogether, and they feel no guilt in breaking the laws that sustain them..
And I say “too much” economic inequality, but that is an oversimplification, I don’t know what movements in what ranges of relative income constitute the critical points that cause social upheavals.
Does it bother you that grad students are poor when you know that in 20 years they will be just fine?
Where did you get that from? What do grad students have to do wth any of this?
Do you really want to go down the road of having the government decide what is a “fair” distribution of wealth?
The government already does that, at least within ranges, by taxation. Your government, like all the others, has already decided what controls and transfers of wealth it wants to make. I certainly don’t argue for a change in principle; just an adjustment of the practice. The mechanisms by which wealth used to trickle down are less effective now than they used to be, because of the decreased reliance on workforce, and that trend is likely to increase and accelerate. That requires a re-evaluation of methods.
I certainly don’t want to see governments try to micromanage the economy. That way lies war, famine, disease, and death.
Personally, I believe the focus should be on eliminating poverty and making sure people have adequate health care and access to good schools.
Eliminating poverty is reducing inequality. Making sure people have adequate health care and access to good schools is also reducing inequality. After all that, we seem to be agreeing!
Also, how do you think allowing millions and million of unskilled immigrants into the U.S. affects economic inequality?
I think it’s an insane policy, and those who advocate it are not in touch with reality, or deliberately selling out their country’s future for some short-term advantage – both the owners who exploit the cheap labour and the politicians who betray their country for votes.
I did not say economic inequality is a problem. Why do you say I said it was?
Well, you did write “This inequality problem is not going away.”
You also wrote:
“It is possible to affect the exponent, and constrain the space, to change the shape of the curve and relationships between the top and bottom of the curve.
I think that should be done in our First World societies at the moment, btw. I think it is entirely reasonable to sacrifice some overall gain in wealth to reduce inequality somewhat.”
This certainly gives the impression that you regard inequality as a problem to be tackled.
Which of these two options do either of you believe is the best way to lift people out of poverty:
1) Doing things, or haranguing other people to do things, for the poor.
2) Teaching the poor, especially YOU yourself teaching the poor, how to do things for themselves
This just in, there’s apparently a third option so please let me know what you think.
https://mobile.twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1206046224714829824?
That’s a complicated question. “The poor” are far from a monolithic bloc.
What percentage of people below the poverty line would benefit from some kind of teaching? Not a lot, I think. Disabilities, cultural attitudes, personal worldview, and local availability of suitable jobs would weigh more heavily than all the instruction than could be brought.
Are you embracing economic determinism?
So, on looking up definitions for economic determinism. I find they cluster around the idea that economic systems determine other things, like language, thought, ideology and culture.
None of that is like anything I said, so I’m going to have to go with a big no on that one.
Incidentally, on reading about the claims that someone, from Marx to others, is an economic determinist, I am struck by the familiar pattern of academics playing pin the tail on the strawman in ignoring the difference between influencing and determining.
If it weren’t for his straw men, who would Mike discuss these issues with?