Thoughts on 'The Poor'

We are constantly told to be ‘compassionate’; to care about the poor; to give to charity. Such exhortations are usually not framed as ways to increase our own happiness, but rather, as things that we ‘should’ do, without telling us why we ‘should’.

Let’s start with giving to charity. I doubt that even if I had more money, I would have any desire to give to charity. This is because I doubt that giving money to an organization that claims to help people that I do not know, would increase my well-being at all noticeably. If I were feeling in a generous mood, I would much prefer to help out people that I know and love, in clearly impactful ways. These people may not be in as much ‘need’ as the poor people that charities help, but I do not care about people’s degree of ‘need’; I care about the individual, particular person. Better to help my middle class friend eat out at a fancy restaurant, than help an unknown poor person put a roof over their heads. At least that’s how I feel, and in egoist philosophy, that is always the main thing.

Okay, so giving money to charity is out. How about in politics? Should I support government policies whose aim is to help poor people? Here, the answer is not as simple, because I do not have the power to unilaterally change government policies. Politics is all about building coalitions: cobbling together enough individual interests into a group powerful enough to sway policy.

Let’s say that I want the, currently government-operated, healthcare and pre-university education systems (in my home province of Ontario) to become privatized. Doing so will be difficult without getting the poorer people who believe that they are benefitted by the systems being ‘public’ on my side. What might I offer them? Let’s look at a hypothetical discussion on the subject:

Me: I would like the healthcare and education systems to be privatized, because I believe that, if operated according to free enterprise principles, these systems will offer a greater variety of options and deliver better service all-around.

Member of the Working Poor (WP): You might be right, but then I would have to pay for healthcare and education for my family and I, whereas currently we get these things for free. I do not think that I will be able to afford it.

Me: The forces of free-market competition always work to drive down cost. These things would be much cheaper in a privatized system than you think they would.

WP: Good to hear, but they still wouldn’t be free. It’s hard to beat free.

Me: You make a fair point. Alright: how about if the government gave you some cash to help you offset the fact that these services will no longer be provided for free?

WP: How much cash are we talking?

Me: Well, last year, the Ontario government spent approximately $50 billion on healthcare, and $22 billion on education. Divide that $72 billion by the approximately 13,900,000 people living in the province, and that’s $5180 that could be given to every man, woman, and child in the province, every year.   

WP: Wow! So for my family of four, we could get…

Me: $20,720 a year.

WP: Sounds like a lot, but are you sure it would be enough to pay for the education of my two kids?

Me: Absolutely. Think about it: let’s say we pay $50,000 to the teacher as salary, and another $50,000 for facilities and supplies. Divide that by a class of 20, and it comes out to $5,000 per pupil. So you’d pay $10,000 for your two kids’ education, and still have over $10,000 left to spend on either healthcare, or anything else that you might need.

WP: Alright, I’m convinced. Let’s do it!

This would be my general approach to convincing lower income people to support free-market policies. Offer them a share of the money previously going to the government operation in question, in order to enlist their support for the elimination of that operation. I would do this, not because I necessarily care about them personally, but: a. in order to form an alliance with them, and b. because if were to end up in their financial situation, I would want an infusion of no-strings attached cash myself. Far better than standard welfare money, which is administered by prying bureaucrats and clawed-back whenever the recipient starts earning money on the market.