It doesn’t matter. Each individual has an obligation to be unobtrusive to those around them. Maybe society will reciprocate and provide support to the individual in return—the US certainly gives poor people more than poor people give society. But the obligation to society comes first.
> Each individual has an obligation to be unobtrusive to those around them. Maybe society will reciprocate and provide support to the individual in return—the US certainly gives poor people more than poor people give society. But the obligation to society comes first.
That's asking a lot when people are living on the edge. In Les Misérables, Jean Valjean wasn't sent to prison for nothing: it was for stealing bread for his starving sister and her family.
(Yes, we can debate how many Americans are truly living on the edge — but everyone makes that judgment for themselves.)
It’s not, and it’s not a relative judgment. Violent crime was rare in my dad’s village in Bangladesh, where people did starve. 20% of kids died before age 5 because of the lack of vaccines. Violent crime should be virtually non-existent in America. The fact we have it at a much greater rate than other developed countries is a flaw in our people and culture, not our economy.
> Violent crime should be virtually non-existent in America. The fact we have it at a much greater rate than other developed countries is a flaw in our people and culture, not our economy.
What's your proposed solution? The Puritans tried, and the Taliban are trying, to change human nature, with only limited "success" (if you want to call it that).
I’m not comparing America to some utopia that has fixed human nature. There’s lots of countries where people don’t jump turnstiles, do pay their fares, don’t fill public spaces with graffiti and used drug needles, don’t yell or dance in the subway, etc. It was our choice to let things get this way. That said, I don’t think you can put the toothpaste back in the tube. We would need an intervention on the scale of denazification to mitigate the individualism and entitlement that causes anti-social behavior. We would have to reform the very narratives parents tell their young children about the world around them and their relationship to society.
