I recently had a conversation in which someone was basically saying that people who handed out small change to beggers on the street were doing society a diservice:"Take as a simple example the act of giving a panhandler spare change. While this charitable act may seem noble oir compassionate, from a broader perspective it probably hurts society. By giving a panhandler change, s/he is incentivized to remain unproductive. Furthermore, others are disincentivized: the hourly wage of panhandling approaches the hourly wage of menial work, which is often more unpleasant. Since panhandling produces no value, the reward for the production of value falls off at the low end."They said.
A couple of points with this.
1) "Since panhandling produces no value"
Panhandling does produce value. Your average begger lives right on the line of survival. He or she is not panhandling for kicks and giggles but simply to get through another day. Beggers, upon hearing that charity has been made illegal aren't just gonna curl up and say "Gee, okay, I'll jus' go chuck myself under a bus." Take away petty charity and what's left..? Petty crime. And petty crime is a pain in the arse. Policemen cost money, so do courts. So does social disruption to local business and residents in areas where once beggers/now malingerers frequent.
Basically, everyday charity is a distrbuted and voluntary tax which prevents a certain demographic of any city from turning into petty criminals.
They also serve as negative examples - bogeymen for the modern times. "Hey lil' Johnny, you do your homework now, or you might end up sitting on the kerb with no front teeth and shit in your pants." A useful social function.
2) "Furthermore, others are disincentivized: the hourly wage of panhandling approaches the hourly wage of menial work, which is often more unpleasant."
I dunno, standing around all day in bad shoes, with everyone wishing you would just fuck off and die, in the rain maybe, or in the cold, with screw all to look forward to, zero prospects and probably no girlfriend, a grumbling belly and bad teeth sounds pretty unpleasent to me. Work, however grindingly tedious and meaninglessly repetitive, does carry an ounce or two of honour and social acceptence along with it. Also the comfort of predictable routines, something to plan around. Externalities. It's not all about money.
Maybe you mean that fabled begger who actually has money bursting out of the seams of his or her matress, a nice house in the burbs and two peachy-faced kids going to college..? There's one in every city or so I've heard. The one near us has a mercedes he keeps in a garage for special days, and pearly porcelain teeth he keeps carefully stained during the week, just for appearances.
I don't think it's the money that people get hung up on but the alleged fact that a begger, by sitting on his butt, can earn enough to have a lifestyle pretty much indistinguishable from that of a menial worker in a more reputable profession.
Which I agree, is not a good thing.
So. A fun idea I had. Rather than abolish or otherwise obstruct everyday charity, perhaps we should change the lifestyle a begger can buy with the income he or she derives from begging.
Ta-da:
No-Fun Money™...Continued...
