The Samaritan's dilemma is a dilemma in the act of

charity Charity may refer to: Giving * Charitable organization or charity, a non-profit organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being of persons * Charity (practice), the practice of being benevolent, giving and sharing * Ch ...

. It hinges on the idea that when presented with charity, in some locations such as a

soup kitchen A soup kitchen, food kitchen, or meal center, is a place where food is offered to the Hunger, hungry usually for free or sometimes at a below-market price (such as via coin donations upon visiting). Frequently located in lower-income neighborhoo ...

, a person will act in one of two ways: using the charity to improve their situation, or coming to rely on charity as a means of survival. The term ''Samaritan's dilemma'' was coined by economist

James M. Buchanan James McGill Buchanan Jr. (; October 3, 1919 – January 9, 2013) was an American economist known for his work on public choice theory originally outlined in his most famous work co-authored with Gordon Tullock in 1962, ''The Calculus of Consen ...

as a moral hazard. The dilemma's name is a reference to the biblical

Parable of the Good Samaritan The parable of the Good Samaritan is told by Jesus in the Gospel of Luke. It is about a traveler (implicitly understood to be Jewish) who is stripped of clothing, beaten, and left half dead alongside the road. First, a Jewish priest and then a ...

Background

In 1970 Buchanan said that the phrase "Samaritan's dilemma" was used by economists to describe how a benevolent individual or institution transfers what was intended to be short-term charity to those in need, only to find that those on the receiving end are not using the assistance to improve themselves but instead became dependent on the relief. As a result both suffer. This was part of a paper entitled, "The 'Social' Efficiency of Education", at the September 1970 meeting in Munich of the

Mont Pelerin Society The Mont Pelerin Society (MPS) is an international organization composed of economists, philosophers, historians, intellectuals and business leaders.Michael Novak, 'The Moral Imperative of a Free Economy', in '' The 4% Solution: Unleashing the E ...

(MPS), in which he summarized from the perspective of economics, the crisis in higher education. He said the cause of the crisis was partly because of modern societies' "economic affluence" and it had resulted in the "relatively new 'parasitic option' out of the more general "Samaritan's dilemma." In the year before the MPS meeting, Buchanan had spent the 1968–1969 academic year at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

. He had left the University of Virginia for UCLA briefly in response to "academic disagreement with the left-leaning administration" there. Unfortunately it was the time of student protests; the People's Park protest in Berkeley reached a climax in May, when under orders from then-Governor

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...

, the

California Highway Patrol The California Highway Patrol (CHP) is a state law enforcement agency of the U.S. state of California. The CHP has primary patrol jurisdiction over all California highways and roads and streets outside city limits, and can exercise law enfor ...

and Berkeley police officers clashed with students in the "most violent confrontation in the university's history." Buchanan shared his concerns with the MPS membership that the ideal university as "ivory tower" had transformed into an "institutional location for the free spirits, for the intellect gadflys, for the heretics of all ages." Students, he wrote, had become disruptive, destructive, "unrestrained" "child-men", "animals...in the streets", lacking in a "sense of mutual respect and tolerance" and flaunting "ordinary rules of conduct". He described how they had "literally" burned college buildings and banks "this year in America." He cautioned that neither the "ordinary citizen nor his political representative" have the courage to force major change by cutting off funding to these students. Instead they allow them to live like "parasites", feeding off others without "contributing" to the well being of others. In his 1975 essay, Buchanan describes how societies, like individuals, need to make courageous decisions from a higher moral perspective to resolve "social problems" by avoiding the trap of asymmetrical situations between the Samaritan and those in need. He laments a "collective loss of will" to do so.

Samaritan's dilemma in disaster preparedness

A study published in 2016 looked at 5089 major

natural disaster A natural disaster is "the negative impact following an actual occurrence of natural hazard in the event that it significantly harms a community". A natural disaster can cause loss of life or damage property, and typically leaves some econ ...

s in 81

developing countries A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreem ...

over a 33-year period. Results showed that the countries that received natural disaster relief had less incentives to provide their own natural disaster protections. This effect is exacerbated the poorer and less-developed the country is that receives the aid.

Avoiding the Samaritan's dilemma

Much foreign aid comes in the form of monetary compensation for damages or direct relief such as food or water. This type of direct aid does not provide any incentive for the recipient to become independent. By introducing incentives that developing countries can meet by building up natural disaster protection the effects of the Samaritan's dilemma can be effectively mitigated.

Background

Samaritan's dilemma in disaster preparedness

Avoiding the Samaritan's dilemma

See also

References

Further reading