This post is a response to a question initially posed on Quora, and can also be accessed via “https://www.quora.com/Is-there-something-wrong-with-taking-benefits/answer/Antonio-Amaral-1“

Only a working-class member of society can pose this question because the little people are perpetually shamed when they take more than they need. This guilt may have begun in our early history while struggling for survival as tribal units, where scarcity was an omnipresent threat due to our level of development and not a consequence of the corrupt politics defining our world today.

If one tribe member took more than they needed, then it was apparent to all members that they all suffered. Greed was naturally restrained at that level, and like all traditions and attitudes inherited from our history, guilt-shaming people for taking more than they need has been passed on throughout the generations.

It’s been an effective means of encouraging people to consider the needs of others. Still, society is no longer plagued with the existential threat of scarcity by our physical incapacity to meet our needs. The threat of scarcity has transformed from a physical limitation to an entirely artificial construct created by the powerful in society to leverage the lion’s share of benefits to themselves. Scarcity has been transformed into a systemic issue enabled by politics, gluttony, and greed. Taking more than one needs at a local banquet no longer results in someone dying of hunger. However, we can still recognize and react viscerally to someone who gorges themselves to the point of vomiting up their overconsumption.

We don’t react that way with the wealthy, whose overindulgence is invisible to most because it manifests as an economic abstraction — numbers in a system characterized by intricate mathematical gymnastics. We don’t react that way to the Walton family underpaying their people and cutting back on staffing to the degree where the few employed are overworked and so radically underpaid that they need government subsidies to survive. We envy their successes and reward them with more benefits.

There isn’t a wealthy person on the planet who doesn’t take advantage of every benefit they can.

They do that as a matter of course and as a matter of pride. Donald Trump has bragged about circumventing his tax responsibilities, and the people cheer him for his success while envying it and wishing they could do the same.

We’ve created a double standard in a society where the privileged few are rewarded for taking advantage of benefits they don’t need while victim-shaming those who rely on benefits they desperately need to survive on the bare necessities.

There is something wrong with this picture, but we seem to prefer to ignore it when designing policies and creating legislation that dramatically affects the lives of billions.

Whether your issue with whatever benefits you or those you know may be taking advantage of, I would suggest we’re only playing into the biases corrupting our systems by focusing on what individuals do when availing themselves of benefits, We would all be far better off addressing the issue of benefits from a systemic level because the sentiment resulting from a fixation on what one’s neighbours are spending their food stamp money only enables the billionaires to justify their tax cuts and increase their subsidies.

After all, the legal concept of “lost opportunity cost” was entirely devised by a rich asshole who justified an entitlement to money beyond the tangible losses incurred in a conflict. It’s a legal argument flatly denied to someone who can’t afford to support it in a pay-to-play legal system.

Try not to forget how Elon Musk tried to sue his advertisers on Xitter for abandoning his platform because he felt entitled to the benefit of their advertising dollars.

This particular move is the equivalent of seeking a benefit from being paid for a job from which one has been fired. With this kind of toxic attitude of entitlement to benefits, I don’t think there’s any little person on the planet who should feel guilty about taking a benefit.

If we fix this surreal hypocrisy, we can discuss what is wrong with taking benefits.