Why can’t we carry each other?

Shelly Springfield sings a song entitled “Why Can’t We Carry Each Other?” I like the song, but the answer to the question might surprise you.

It certainly makes sense that we want to carry each other. Most of us are naturally inclined to care about and for one another. From birth we are taught by our parents’ actions and words that we are loved and that they, our parents, take responsibility for ensuring our protection and support. We are carried, literally, from conception until we learn to balance ourselves on toddling legs and waddle across a room into our parents’ inviting arms, sometimes to their surprise, but always to their great relief. Soon they will be carrying us no longer.

But Springfield’s song isn’t about carrying children. It’s about carrying each other, and it is here that there is a problem. To walk, a young child must first stand, usually by pulling themselves up on a piece of furniture. They must learn to balance themselves without support.  Their legs are strengthened by standing and balancing. But the biggest challenge they face is developing the courage to try. The first clumsy step is the hardest. They may need to fall on their backsides and get up again, and perhaps again. Walking isn’t easy. It requires motivation, effort, practice, and ultimately, skill.

In the context of a larger community there are always people who are at various stages of walking. Some simply refuse to stand. They are willing to wait until others lift them from their prone position. They are thoroughly unmotivated. We are thus presented with a conundrum. So long as we are willing to pick them up, provide their needs, give them protection, and provide support, their complete lack of motivation remains unchallenged. Is this the right thing for us to do—to suppress the potential motivation of thoroughly unmotivated people?

Others have gotten up. Perhaps they have toddled a few steps, but they have fallen and they’re unwilling to try again. It’s just too hard for them, this standing and toddling and falling.  Their initial motivation to move forward is now diminished, and they are unwilling to pick themselves up and try again. If we help them get on their feet, will they move forward on their own power? Or at the first obstacle, will they simply sit down and wait for another hand up? We don’t know.

In the context of a larger community we have evolved processes and structures to help those who won’t or can’t help themselves. We offer programs that meet their needs for housing, healthcare, food, and other support. We do this with great inefficiency. Vast numbers of bureaucrats are required to execute an array of administrative jobs navigating complex sets of sometimes counterintuitive rules. Some of these government workers are dedicated and caring.  Others are not.

Then there is charity. People with good hearts bypass the government and help those who are unwilling or unable to stand on their own. Unencumbered by bureaucratic rules, charities are more efficient. Volunteers bring empathy and energy to the task. But charitable entities almost always duplicate the many government programs already in place. Nearly all of those who can’t or won’t stand are receiving food stamps, about 45 million people. Still, charities provide food. Governments provide 1.3 million units of public housing and billions of dollars in housing subsidies for the poor. Still, charities provide shelter. Most people below the poverty line are eligible for healthcare provided directly or through government insurance programs like Medicaid or CHIP. Still, hospital emergency rooms are less about emergencies and more about meeting the basic medical needs of the poor. It is less true to say that thirty million people have no healthcare than to say that the healthcare available for thirty million people is incredibly expensive and inefficient.

This is why we can’t carry each other. It is more often the wrong thing to do than the right thing to do. When we carry each other, we don’t let the unmotivated sit long enough to reevaluate their condition. When we carry each other, we don’t let those who have fallen pull themselves up again and toddle forward, improving their balance and strengthening their legs.

But what about our hearts? Not the physical, pounding organs in the centers of our chests that keep our bodies alive but the quiet spirit living deep inside us that causes us to care for others. How can we take no action when we know that there are people who have little or no food, inadequate clothing, or no place to live? How can we turn a blind eye to children who are suffering due to the bad decisions of their parents? How can we live with ourselves when we know that others suffer?

The answer isn’t how, but why. If we continue to carry the unmotivated or discouraged in the manner we now carry them, the numbers of those who are unmotivated and discouraged will continue to increase. Basic economic theory holds that if you subsidize an activity, you get more of that activity. (To validate this simple rule of economics, drive across the plains of the United States and count the giant windmills on America’s farms.) Subsidies influence behavior. If we are always there, those who lack motivation will know that we are always there. If it’s up to them to pick themselves up, they will pick themselves up if they are able. This is why we can’t carry each other. It’s the wrong thing to do. We can help. We can give a lift the first time they fall, but to continue picking them up is the wrong thing to do—not wrong for us, but wrong for them.

Like a caring parent, we have to walk across the room, spread inviting arms of encouragement and let those with weak and untrained legs toddle on their own. Until they do it themselves, they will never know that they can do it themselves, and that’s why we can’t carry each other.