It's Not Your Job To Impoverish Yourself

Well-being shouldn’t be graded on a curve

Image credit: Jasper Langley-Hawthorne

In O. Henry’s The Gift Of The Magi, a husband and wife each sacrifice their own well-being to buy a gift for their spouse. The husband secretly sells his watch to buy combs for his wife; the wife secretly sells her hair to buy a chain for her husband’s watch. Both gifts are rendered useless by the items sold to grant them. 

Although the characters’ actions are noble in the original story, I’d like you to consider making one change to it: What if they knew their gifts were useless? The husband and wife each sacrifice their own well-being, but do it to help no one at all. 

Surely their actions would still be noble? After all, by worsening their own conditions, they help those poorer than them to “climb the ladder on a relative scale,” as my friend Caleb Rasor suggested in The Forum. Because their own conditions are worse, others gain “a signifier of intergenerational progress”: the fact that other people are worse off than they are. And, of course, well-being should be graded on a curve, right?

As CMC grapples with questions about economic mobility after the recent student forum on financial aid, it is more crucial than ever to distinguish between a mobility that moves the bottom up, and a mobility which moves the top down. The crux of Rasor’s piece is that wealthy students should “embrace downward mobility,” i.e. take lower-paying jobs than their parents. 

I agree with several of the claims underpinning Rasor’s argument, but one stands out as a rotten plank of argumentation which, if adopted, risks propping up larger rotten moral claims: the idea that the wealthy should sacrifice their own conditions for the “upward relative mobility” of others. 

First, consider that good actions must be distinguished between obligatory actions — a moral necessity — and supererogatory actions — a moral good that is not a necessity. Rasor and I agree it is admirable to take low-paying jobs if they benefit society. But Rasor suggests that, for wealthy students specifically, it isn’t the same supererogatory good it is for everyone else: For wealthy students, self-sacrificial behavior is possibly even obligatory, because in their case, the worsening of their conditions increases “upward relative mobility.” 

In imploring wealthy students to help others at their own expense, Rasor simultaneously goes too far and not far enough — placing too great a burden on too narrow a set of people. Everyone should seek to help others. If helping others happens to lead you to worsen your own conditions, that is admirable. It may, on occasion, be noble, but it is not your obligation to impoverish yourself.

Parts of Rasor’s initial claim are certainly true. Teaching, research, and nonprofit work have the potential to bring massive benefits to society. But these benefits are the same regardless of the childhood wealth of the qualified person working the job. This portion of his argument is utilitarian, but the utilitarian calculus gives no extra weight to the deeds of the wealthy. Yes, wealthy students should sometimes accept low-paying jobs, but only because students in general should sometimes accept low-paying jobs. So why make this demand only of wealthy students?

Rasor’s answer is that “a rich child that remains rich is preventing upward relative mobility.” Upward mobility is, no doubt, important. Relative upward mobility, however, has no importance, despite its frequent correlation with absolute upward mobility.

I live in a neighborhood that could show up in the dictionary under “wealth inequality.” A short walk north carries you to million-dollar homes. A short walk south takes you to state-built housing that can only be described as unlivable: Residents call the security “cardboard cutouts” for their failure to keep anyone safe from robberies. People urinate and inject hard drugs in the hallways and stairwells. Cockroaches and mice infest the complex. The only people who live in this building are people who have no alternative but homelessness — which one resident reports having been threatened with when raising safety concerns.

You should be angry after reading this. The residents of this inhospitable space should have better lives. But notably, despite the existence of their neighbors to the north, you are probably not angry about their relative well-being.

Reminders of the squalor of poor absolute economic conditions contextualize the unimportance of relative ones. Society would gain nothing by swapping the residences of those north and south of my family. But Rasor is not simply suggesting swapping your economic conditions with those worse-off than you, he is suggesting that dragging down your own conditions is in and of itself a justification for downward mobility. To the children of wealthy parents north of me, his call to action is not “help the poor,” but “help the poor and hurt yourself.” The second part of that message does nothing for those in need.

Consider this: It is good for unknowledgeable people to be able to learn more, to have a chance at “upward mobility of knowledge.” But if I were to suggest you make yourself ignorant to allow for “relative upward mobility of knowledge,” you would call me a madman. Relative economic mobility is no different. Rasor laments that “a rich child that remains rich is preventing upward relative mobility.” Do we lament that a knowledgeable person that remains knowledgeable is preventing upward relative mobility of knowledge? No — because knowledge, like well-being, is not zero-sum.

Self-sacrificially helping others is admirable. But it is not admirable because worsening one’s own conditions is good; it is admirable because helping others is good, and doing so at the expense of oneself makes the deed more likely to be motivated by genuine virtue. But self-sacrifice, in isolation, is a negative-sum activity. If you do not actively help anyone, making your own condition worse makes the total well-being of society worse. Putting yourself in worse circumstances is a disadvantage. Sometimes, this disadvantage can be outweighed by the advantages, but it is a disadvantage nevertheless.

Calvin Coolidge argued this point 112 years ago, admonishing us not to “expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong.” We would do well to heed his words today.