No matter how low one's income is, it's always possible to give something...but it's been slipping down into what North Americans call poverty that's made me commit to giving to individuals on a give-and-take basis, rather than either taking or giving handouts from "programs." "Programs" that go beyond disaster relief seem to have an unintended consequence of training people to think, and define themselves, into a Giver Class and a Taker Class--which is very bad for both--rather than bonding through an individual or community-level give-and-take.
"Programs" also tend to have an industrial-assembly-line approach to problems. That's fine if the goal is to dispense treatment in one epidemic, like the worm treatment discussed in the article, or the surgeries discussed in the comment below. It's not so fine once people start thinking about "health care" in general, since the people in the target population are individuals with different needs, and what helps one won't necessarily help another. That's how communities end up with bizarre crises, like one that's stuck in my mind for fifteen years--Medicare/Medicaid financed therapy for paraplegics who were elderly or had major brain damage, but not for what turned out to be a good-sized community of paraplegics who could actually go back to work or school if they had therapy.
So...as a rich man's penniless widow I still give to various causes, but I give much more selectively, thinking much harder about how the project described would work for people I know, whether it would give us the help we need (to collect fair payment for what we do) or write us off as useless paupers. I have a utility bill to pay...but do I want some kind of handout to help poor old needy useless blighters pay their bills, or do I want wages for work?
On Dec 7, 2015 Priscilla King wrote:
No matter how low one's income is, it's always possible to give something...but it's been slipping down into what North Americans call poverty that's made me commit to giving to individuals on a give-and-take basis, rather than either taking or giving handouts from "programs." "Programs" that go beyond disaster relief seem to have an unintended consequence of training people to think, and define themselves, into a Giver Class and a Taker Class--which is very bad for both--rather than bonding through an individual or community-level give-and-take.
"Programs" also tend to have an industrial-assembly-line approach to problems. That's fine if the goal is to dispense treatment in one epidemic, like the worm treatment discussed in the article, or the surgeries discussed in the comment below. It's not so fine once people start thinking about "health care" in general, since the people in the target population are individuals with different needs, and what helps one won't necessarily help another. That's how communities end up with bizarre crises, like one that's stuck in my mind for fifteen years--Medicare/Medicaid financed therapy for paraplegics who were elderly or had major brain damage, but not for what turned out to be a good-sized community of paraplegics who could actually go back to work or school if they had therapy.
So...as a rich man's penniless widow I still give to various causes, but I give much more selectively, thinking much harder about how the project described would work for people I know, whether it would give us the help we need (to collect fair payment for what we do) or write us off as useless paupers. I have a utility bill to pay...but do I want some kind of handout to help poor old needy useless blighters pay their bills, or do I want wages for work?