Understanding Inequality

Our pastor told the following story in church this week:

An elementary school had what was called a "hunger banquet" intended to "raise awareness of world hunger," [or something]. They took the students and divided them among three tables. The students at the first table were served plenty of pastries and fruit. Those at the second table received a doughnut and a juice box. The third table had only saltine crackers and water.

The teachers/experimenters solicited feedback from the students, and reported two reactions in particular. A student at the fruit-and-pastry table said she enjoyed her food, but felt bad for the students at the other tables. Meanwhile, a student at the saltine table asserted, "Everybody should get the same food."

What to make of this?

I would speculate that few if any of the students would assert that all students should get the same grades. Many would like to receive, and may think they deserve, higher grades than they actually do, but few would quarrel with the proposition that grades ought to reflect what a student learns in class and demonstrates on tests and homework.

So which -- school or the table experiment -- is a more appropriate metaphor for understanding inequality?

This is not an attempt to assert some kind of metaphysical justice in inequality. On the contrary, even academic performance is front loaded with all kinds of differentials well beyond an individual student's control. To start with, nobody deserves credit for having been born with intelligence, or good health, or energy. No student deserves credit for having attentive parents who set high expectations, who solicit feedback from teachers and monitor progress, and who create a home environment conducive to education. I would argue that these have far more to do with what a student learns that his own disembodied sovereign will. But at the end of the day, some students have learned more than others, and nobody thinks that grades oughtn't reflect these differentials.

Likewise for economic inequality. We should get little personal credit for having been lucky enough to be born to a people who, for reasons not fully accounted, evolved the ability to build the civilization we have inherited. A civilization that protects property and enforces contracts. A civilization that nurtures discovery, industry, cooperation, and enterprise. A civilization that, by the hard work and self-discipline of our forbears, left us huge reserves of capital: physical, social, moral and intellectual. This is the world to which we Americans have been born.

But there is no fruit-and-pastry-dispenser-in-the-sky who sets more food before some than others. The people of some nations grow more food, produce more value, generate more wealth than the people of other nations. These productivity differentials drive the differentials in living standards. This doesn't require that the less fortunate suffer a character flaw. On the contrary, a third-world subsistence farmer may labor much harder than his American counterpart, but his tools -- physical, mental and social -- are much, much weaker.

It is on this ground that the fruit-and-cracker lesson comes up short. The students contributed nothing to the meal in front of them, but life doesn't usually work like that. I can think of several improvements to the exercise. For instance, what if the students at the "rich" table had to slice the fruit and bake the pastries? Yes, they would get better food, but they would have to work for it. What if all the ingredients were distributed equally, but only the rich table was given appliances and utensils. Or only the rich table received the recipe. Or maybe (not that a public school would or should actually do this) the "poor" table had to work with the short bus riders who set about wrecking the work of others. Now we would be closer to teaching the real causes of wealth and poverty.

As it happened, the topic came up again during Sunday School. Our class had signed up to "do Christmas" for a poor family in the city (the real city, not Φ's lily-white little burg) through a charity that puts churches in touch with such families that apply to it. We generally thought this meant gifts for the children and Christmasy food items; we pitched in with a ham, for instance. Anyway, for reasons not here important, we were asked to also consider a second family. Two things stood out about this family's application (I mean, other than an evident history of sexual incontinence, which almost goes without saying). First, the children were older. And second, under "needs", the family had listed some expensive electronics (XBox) and -- get this -- "gift cards."

Let me take a stab at what was off-putting about this. In theory, gift cards are a way of avoiding the risk that the gifts we bring are things the family doesn't want or can't use, and they don't have quite the level of condescension as cash. But some of the families in our class are going through a lean stretch; as one mother pointed out, she didn't buy much in the way of new stuff for her own children. And even I don't have an XBox. But also, while I'm happy to bring a little Christmas cheer to young children who can't help what their parents are, teenagers really ought to begin to feel the sting of their circumstances. Maybe, it will help them evaluate their choices in life a little more wisely.

So how do you draw the line between "helping" and "enabling"?

As Ross once pointed out, the reason rich people give millions of dollars to rich universities is because real charity is hard work. At least a university will put your name on the building. But you can drop millions of dollars into poverty with nothing to show for it but more poverty. Really helping people requires knowing them up close. Knowing, for instance, that they have a car that needs a working solenoid so that they can get to work, or which child has worn out her shoes, or that they're behind in their utility payment this winter because of a layoff, even though they keep the thermostat way down. It's about knowing enough not to be gamed, and that's not even getting into the developmental issue of how to get someone beyond needing help. It means getting close to people from whom we are seperated, not just by race or income or class, but by a whole range of moral and character factors that govern how we make important decisions. It means getting to know some deeply, deeply dysfunctional people with whom we have almost no common frame of reference.