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What are friends for?
03 July 2006
Once upon a time there was a man called David. He was very rich, and quite generous. Whenever his poorer neighbours ran out of food, he would give them some of his own, and he would sometimes even buy more food from his friends in order to be able to give more. And sometimes he would employ another of his friends to deliver the food that he bought to other poor people over a much wider area. But David was also quite thoughtful, and one day he asked himself whether there might not be a better way to go about things. He had noticed that those neighbours to whom he gave food often needed more food the next year – in other words, he might have succeeded in keeping them alive, but the trouble was that they weren’t any better equipped the next time hunger struck – in fact sometimes they seemed to need his help even more.
Consider the alternatives
So he thought that, rather than giving them food after disaster had struck, he could give them money and other help before it struck. In that way his poorer neighbours might be better prepared, and therefore better equipped to help themselves (and maybe even their neighbours). David did his sums, and he realised that this might even be a cheaper solution, and therefore more efficient in the long run! He talked to his friends about his new ideas. At first they were all very enthusiastic, and even wanted to join up with him to improve the way they all went about giving. But then they started asking questions.
Advice from friends
First his friend Sam, for example, from whom David often bought the food that he gave to his poorer neighbours, told David that he would have far too much food left over if David didn’t buy from him, and what was he supposed to do with all of that? Then his friend Wilfred explained that he had invested a lot of time and money and energy in setting up a transport fleet to help David distribute the food to all his neighbours – what was he supposed to do with all of that if David just gave out money rather than food? Then his banker made the point that if David just gave away his money, he would lose any power to influence the recipients for the better (to encourage them which crops to grow, for example, or to give up any bad habits they might have). As a result they would become much more independent and less pliant: they would begin to take their own decisions, and those decisions might not always be the right ones. And finally his friend Sheila said that she thought David ought to consult more widely before rushing ahead with his new plans – he should take advice from all the local organisations and specialists to make sure that they were all in favour. And of course as soon as he started taking advice from everyone, it became clear that there would be losers as well as winners.
Decisions
And of course the potential losers shouted much louder that the likely winners (who were just poor people anyway); and they said they would do all sorts of things to make it difficult for David to go ahead with his new plans. David didn’t want all his friends to desert him just for the sake of a different way of doing things (which he suddenly felt might not be that much better in any case), so he changed his mind and just went on doing things the same old way that he always had.
Image Credit: More Altitude
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