Beyond charity

The scene is all too familiar. Wiping off the orange ooze of a Koronet slice, already cursing what will inevitably become another bout of indigestion, I stride in the early hours of dawn toward the warm embrace of Alma, guided only by the glimmer of the teal copper roofing. Just as I can make out the outline of Furnald, a ragged shadow halts my advance. In a voice that tries to maintain its strength, in spite of the misery that weighs it down, he asks for a handful of dollars to buy a coat for the winter. Touched by his plea, I hastily reach for my wallet. However, as I look at this man in the eye, and watch him close his fist on the mere pittance I can give, it takes a substantial amount of willpower to hold back an embrace. For more than wallowing in pity, I feel ashamed that, in my seeming act of kindness, I have perpetuated the structure that keeps billions of human beings under crushing destitution.

Yet for the past three decades, the dominant strand of economic thought in the United States has taught us to accept that the vagabond is out there by his own volition. Offered the gracious liberties of the free market, this parasitic lumpenproletariater has plummeted to obscurity through purely personal failings. As a result, the country has reached a point in time in which it is unable to recognize exploitation, degradation, and systemic flaws for what they are. Unfortunately, Columbia’s economics department has been largely responsible for promoting, refining, and inculcating these wayward principles. The result is that students, conditioned by the philosophy of “rational choice” and buoyed by a belief that unregulated capitalism is a purely meritocratic system that abounds with opportunity, for the most part have heartily embraced Thatcher’s immemorial phrase that “there is no alternative.”

This is most pronounced in the very act of charity. We as students continue to affirm that by being munificent we are simply covering blemishes in an otherwise functional system. By sparing change, purchasing certain brands, and volunteering in community service, we believe that we are all “solving” food insecurity, “chipping away” at the enormous income inequality gap, and “providing” universal occupational standards. Even as the wreckage of the latest financial crisis lies before them, too few go as far as to question whether the dismantling of institutionalized public services, the continued assault upon organized labor, and the scaling back of external, non-market forces throughout the globe have had merit to their assumptions. It appears to be of no great concern to the political groups on campus that the American median household income has not been this low since 1996, while productivity, corporate profits, and executive compensation have all soared. Neither is the fact that a forcibly unorganized labor market is now considered an acceptable trade-off to prevent “wage compression,” even though it has stratified the American workforce while significantly decreasing job security. The neo-liberal model, along with its pillars of deregulation, privatization and methodological individualism, remains the only frame of our professors, despite the fact that its implementation has led towards industry monopolization, grave economic instability, and a swift redistribution of wealth toward a diminutive sliver of the populace. Sorely missing from the classroom are the notions of societal interdependence, empowerment, and solidarity.

The result of all this inculcation is the widespread acceptance by students that charity, accompanied by a “shift in attitude,” is the panacea for the downtrodden. Congress’ political clout is certainly of no help—close attention to political discourse lets us know how pervasive the belief that poverty can be solved by humanitarian acts of the superrich has actually become. Against the obstacles we face, however, charity is ultimately powerless. Do not misunderstand what I am trying to put forth. Never, Columbians, will I ask you to rebuff a starving child’s cries. Charity will and should always exist as an immediate reprieve. Yet I urge you, now more than ever, to recognize that there exist more profound systemic barriers to the egalitarian future we strive for, and that there are many vested, powerful interests in keeping the world structured the way it is.

Today, more Americans are living under the absurdly low poverty line than in the past half century. Next time you witness the shadow that roams Broadway, be aware that his haunt is not a bothersome exception to normality. This man is the normality of a system that we have internalized as natural.

The author is a Columbia College first-year. He is a member of Youth for Debate, the International Socialist Organization, and the New York Fencers Club.