From 53048ca5dfe9bcd19c43f076340c09e233a052aa Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Holden Rohrer Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2020 21:25:03 -0500 Subject: terribly disorganized commit of things from the past couple months --- jones-la/quick6.tex | 31 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 31 insertions(+) create mode 100644 jones-la/quick6.tex (limited to 'jones-la/quick6.tex') diff --git a/jones-la/quick6.tex b/jones-la/quick6.tex new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cc6244f --- /dev/null +++ b/jones-la/quick6.tex @@ -0,0 +1,31 @@ +\input mla8.tex +%\emergencystretch=1in +%\parskip=4pt plus 2pt minus 2pt + +\numberfirstpage +\clas{AP Lang} +\name{Holden} \last{Rohrer} +\prof{Jones} +\header +\title{Quick Write 1: Charity as Transaction} + +The transaction is the simplest economic unit: some persons want what the other has in exchange for what they currently have, and the exchange occurs. +In the barest sense, charity is also a transaction. +One exchanges money or food or clothing for a sense of philanthropy and the knowledge that some good has occurred on one's behalf. +Economies introduce a flaw into standard transactions which isn't an issue in this sort of transaction, wealth inequality. + +In most cases, this flaw is reasonable. +Someone with more wealth can righteously buy more things than someone with less. +But in the case of charity, every participant, regardless their wealth, can participate. +This is because a philanthropic exchange does not require a specific amount of giving or good to be done. +An ordinary person giving \$100 is far more charitable than Jeff Bezos' million because charity is scalable and personal. + +But the instant that a ``real'' incentive is created, like bonus points on a test or a final, it stops being charity in two ways. +The first is the most direct---charity requires philanthropy, which is contradicted by a transaction. +Buying, whether with canned goods or US dollars, a grade or a prize which could not be otherwise (fungibly) obtained is ruinous. +It is, firstly, not scalable (meaning it is not charity) because some metric must be used to measure how much a person ``should'' give, which is easily corrupted by wealth inequality. +Second, the transaction itself is intrinsically unfair. +Certain incentives, like tax breaks, provide something fungible like money which merely offsets the cost of charitability (in effect, the donation is ``matched'' by whomever gives the incentive) +Others, which are not fungible, like grades are necessarily highly transactional and improper incentives. + +\bye -- cgit