COLUMN: The dregs of life

From Shiraz Allidina's "Asian Hil Lizard," Fall '96 From Shiraz Allidina's "Asian Hil Lizard," Fall '96Marshal you arguments inFrom Shiraz Allidina's "Asian Hil Lizard," Fall '96Marshal you arguments inadvance when you goFrom Shiraz Allidina's "Asian Hil Lizard," Fall '96Marshal you arguments inadvance when you godrinking with a rationalist.From Shiraz Allidina's "Asian Hil Lizard," Fall '96Marshal you arguments inadvance when you godrinking with a rationalist. I was walking down Walnut Street, chewing the fat with my old buddy Bobo the Rationalist. Bobo's the kind of guy who would never eat his chunky beef soup with a fork. "Gotta maximize throughput," he says. As we walked on, I sighed the familiar Penn-student-sigh-of-middle-class-guilt as the Jiminy Cricket of my social conscience chirped away at the Pinnochio of my ego. "That's just terrible," I mused. "We live in the richest country in the world. How can we allow people to be homeless? Are we so greedy that we never want to share even a small crumb of our pie?" Bobo looked aghast as we turned onto 39th Street. "What!? How can you, a Wharton student, take such an unenlightened view? You should stop doing that damn crossword and start paying attention in class." We sat down at the bar at Cav's and ordered beers. "Everybody seeks to maximize his own utility," Bobo continued. "In plain English, that means that every person will always do what's best for them. You can easily observe someone's value system, or how he judges 'best' and 'worst' by simply watching what he does. Basically, that guy on Walnut Street has chosen to spend his time begging on the streets. I figure we should let him get on with it." Now it was my turn to look aghast. "Bobo, are you saying that he's happy doing that?" I asked. "Sure he is, otherwise he wouldn't be doing it," Bobo replied. "Now all sorts of people will always be saying that we should get him off the streets. That's just a sophisticated sort of cultural imperialism, bourgeois culture trying to exterminate bum culture." The weird thing about this conversation was that Bobo was serious. I tried to talk his language: "But isn't his decision-making being completely restricted by external constraints? He doesn't have the kind of opportunity that we have. He needs to be helped." "No. That's the kind of analysis I'd expect from some kid at Harvard," Bobo sneered. "Dammit, it's more complex than that." He paused for a long draught of Guinness. I knew this signaled an imminent diatribe. "There are costs and benefits associated with any social policy," Bobo explained. "There are also social costs and benefits associated with different types of behavior. You have to first ask yourself whether your government should discourage certain behaviors and, if so, to what degree." "I get it," I interjected. "So that's why we have a police force, because I tend to dislike it when someone breaks into my house and takes my dishwasher." "Precisely," Bobo replied. "But you realize the police are not there to prevent or discourage any and all crime, but to keep it at an efficient level." I was thoroughly confused. "At some point," Bobo continued, "the cost to society of preventing a crime outweighs the benefit of having that crime prevented. For example, by placing all 250 million Americans under house arrest, I could vastly reduce the crime rate. But such a policy would carry an enormous cost in terms of human freedom. Thus, policy concentrates on keeping crime at an efficient level rather than eliminating it completely." "Fine," I said, exasperated. "But what does all this have to do with the homeless?" "Well," he answered, "we can draw a direct parallel by saying that there is an efficient level of homelessness, and that we are currently at that level. Who's to say that society should shackle that man's personal freedom or distort his incentives by offering him a bribe to stay off the street? Not I!" I stayed calm. That's the only way you can ever hope to win with Bobo. "But the analogy is ridiculous," I stammered. "There are no conceivable benefits of homelessness! And the costs of preventing it would not be so high." "That's where you're wrong!" he shouted triumphantly. "First of all, it would by quite costly to house every homeless person, since that would create an incentive for people to claim to be homeless in order to benefit from state aid. No one would bother to pay their mortgage." "That's a second-order effect," I muttered, "and you're being glib by making unverified behavioral assumptions." "Now you're talking, Wharton-boy!" Bobo laughed. "But here's the kicker: there is most certainly a benefit from allowing that man to continue to be homeless." I stopped, puzzled. He had a gleam in his eye. "You see it all comes down to guilt," Bobo said. "I may be a rationalist, but I accept that humans have peculiar motivations and desires that they wish to fulfill, albeit rationally. Both individually and as a collective society, we harbor a considerable degree of guilt, which is usually manifested by the misguided and somewhat fascist bleeding-heart sentiments you just expressed. "What that homeless guy is doing is providing a service," he added. "He is a conduit for our guilt, lying there and allowing us to wallow in it. Secondly, he very generously gives us an opportunity to assuage that guilt. That's why I gave him that quarter -- a rational exchange between two consenting parties." Bobo sucked down the rest of his pint. "Like another?" he asked. "No," I replied. I had a headache. I always get a headache when I go drinking with a rationalist.