I had one of those very odd convergences that happen from time to time. As most of you know, I have started carrying an extra plastic grocery bag with me while I walk my dog around the neighborgood. I use it to pick up the various pieces of trash that people toss in our neighborhood. My friend Andee taught me this lesson of social responsibility.
On Saturday the dog and I took our usual route walking through a few blocks of residential neighborhoods. I picked up the odd candy or gum wrapper, but nothing big. But when Jiggs and I came to our local park, I noticed a huge difference in the trash: fast food wrappers and sacks, plastic bags, beer bottles, a full pack of strewn playing cards, fruit drink boxes, several items that I choose not to mention on a family blog, and assorted other papers. I had filled my bag and decided to drop it in a trash container in front of one of the state buildings. Just as I did, a police car pulled up and the officer told me he was going to cite me for putting household trash in a public trash can. When I told him what I was doing, he did not believe me and told me it was not my job to clean up the trash.
That little incident took me back to my posting about economics and I drew the following conclusions.
1. The amount of trash at the park compared to the amount in the residential neighborhoods is a perfect example of the Tragedy of the Commons. The homeowners own their property and take action to prevent their yards from looking like dump annexes. Because the park is owned by the public, no one has responsibility to keep it looking nice. Tossing trash there has no price because it is someone else's problem. And that is why socialism is always doomed to fail.
2. Most of the trash items I pick up are dropped by children on the way to school (with the exception of the beer bottles and the unmentionables -- I hope). In every country I visit, children seem to have not yet learned that throwing trash on the street is not acceptable behavior. Maybe this is just a corollary of the last point. Children own nothing and do not understand the responsibility that goes along with property ownership.
3. No good deed goes unpunished. The policeman exemplifies the type of authority that wrongly drives people into the grips of Objectivism. I am convinced that he thought I had made up the lamest excuse he had ever heard -- voluntarily picking up other people's trash -- go ahead and pull the other one. But, as I have said before, I really believe Andee was correct: when you can do something to help someone, why not?
