Paying it Forward

This week in school I saw a student fall over, hard in the playground.  He did not make much noise, but he was clearly in pain, and it was heartening to see literally dozens of people notice and come across - not to stare, but to ask how he was, and if they could help.  A small, everyday story of kindness and care, and one that I imagine will surprise no-one.

Contrast this with harrowing news from Texas, where millions are without power in temperatures as low as -18° C.  With food and water shortages, and social distancing requirements, people have been standing in queues for hours to get supplies, so when the power failed in a supermarket, everyone groaned and expected to either pay by cash or return items to shelves.  But in fact the supermarket took the decision to say you know what, people need these supplies.  Let’s just let them have them and allowed people to just leave without paying - to just go home with fully-laden trolleys. 

Full credit to the supermarket for a compassionate decision; but what’s interesting is that this was big news; that our expectation seems to be that these people in need should just return home empty handed when modes of transaction are not available.  It suggests to me that basic expectations of kindness have become blunted and hardened, so much so that any inversion of norms makes headlines.  Nowhere is this more clearly articulated than in the then-mayor of Colorado City, Tim Boyd’s extraordinary rant: "No one owes you [or] your family anything; nor is it the local government's responsibility to support you during trying times like this!" he said. "The City and County, along with power providers or any other service owes you NOTHING! I'm sick and tired of people looking for a damn handout." (to be fair, Boyd was forced out of office for these remarks).  Now the supermarket could not and should not take responsibility for looking after their customers entirely, but isn’t this example of doing more than you need to, to help out people in trouble, one we can all learn from?

This is, of course, well recognised  - and increasingly, so, by wider and wider swathes of society.  In August 2019, 191 Business Leaders representing 30% of the US market capitalization signed a statement asserting that the purpose of all companies was to promote an economy that serves all Americans - which is to say, not just prioritising shareholder value about all else..  When the supermarket acted accordingly, it should not have been surprising.  But it was.

How can we move toward a world where such acts are unremarkable?  One way is to publicise them.  Here’s another story.  An activist shareholder asked Tim Cook, Apple CEO, about the company’s renewable energy efforts and told him that Apple should only undertake such efforts if they were profitable. In a rare display of anger, Cook replied that there were many things Apple did because they were right and just. When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind  he added I don’t consider the bloody ROI [return on investment]. Then he added If you want me to do things only for return-on-investment reasons, you should get out of this stock.  Apple may not be perfect, but this explicit statement of values is a great story; we need more such stories.

We also need to examine our deeply held beliefs about the nature of people.  A popular account of how we behave, especially under conditions of scarcity (often taught in Economics), is that we should look out  for ourselves; act in our own narrow self-interest - that’s the way to maximise outcomes for everyone.  But increasingly, we know that’s not true.  This supermarket’s act of kindness and generosity seems to have sparked a wave of kindness in Texas, as these Texans then helped each other load their cars,  drive through icy conditions, and even donated the saved money to help others get through the crisis.  They paid it forward, as they say.  And our popular narratives around people’s basic nature has stories like Lord of the Flies at its heart - where a group of boys trapped in an island descend into savagery when resources are short.  The trouble with that is that it’s a work of fiction, and as author Rutger Bregman tells so compellingly, in the only case we know where boys were trapped on an island, they actually cooperated, drew up rosters, ways of resolving conflict, and looked after each other through sickness until rescued.   So perhaps cooperation, rather than competition should be our basic metaphor for how we are.

Part of  continuing the move to a better society has to be for our children to be able to be shocked not just by what happens, but also to be shocked that kindness and compassion are in any way remarkable.  We can continue these good playgrounds habits.  We must.

Reference

• Bregman, R. (2020) The real Lord of the Flies: what happened when six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months The Guardian

• Brito, C (2021) Texas mayor resigns after telling residents desperate for power and heat "only the strong will survive" CBS News

• Business Roundtable (2019) Business Roundtable Redefines the Purpose of a Corporation to Promote ‘An Economy That Serves All Americans’

• Webb, E. (2021)  When a busy H-E-B lost power, store told Texans gathering supplies to 'go ahead' without paying  Austin American Statesman