The paradox of the prodigal son

Compassion for those in pain is a typically human trait, to the point that, according to a famous meme that is making the rounds of the internet, American anthropologist Margaret Mead proposed that the first sign of civilization is a broken and healed thighbone, because in the animal kingdom no one with a broken leg survives long enough to see it healed. Caring for someone is expensive in terms of resources: the ailing person has to be fed while they are unable to fend for themselves, but even the carer has the same needs, because as long as they are caring for someone they cannot go out to procure for themselves. The organization required to feed these two people through an additional effort of the whole tribe is one of the markers of what we call civilization.

There is however, an important caveat to caring: if it becomes too widespread it can ruin the society, and in fact a great deal of modern legislation goes into arbitrating who is and who is not entitled to social help taking into account the circumstances of their misfortunes and the pool of resources that the state can devote to help: if they are too stringent, the assistance will not be able to help all those in need; if it is too loose, some people might be unduly benefiting from it, even to the point that they might give up some work and live on welfare instead. Threading the needle means identifying a way of helping those in need without discouraging able people from helping themselves. This is what economists call moral hazard, the fact that you might be rewarded for engaging in irresponsible behavior, like giving up a job that happens to be low-paying and being rewarded with a more generous social payout.

Photo: J3SSL33

Even if this term was originally forged around the 17th century and having grown in a family of christian tradition, it unavoidably reminds me of the parable of the prodigal son, as recounted in the Gospel of Luke from approximately 80-110 CE. In this parable, the younger of two sons asks the father for his share of the estate and takes off to live the high life, only to fall into ruin shortly thereafter. When he realizes that any of his father's servants lives a much more comfortable life, he comes back with the intention of asking his father to take him as a servant. Instead, his father takes him with open arms, dresses him with the best robes and kills the fattened calf to through a party in his honor. Of course, the older son protests the expensive welcome his brother is receiving even after squandering a substantial portion of the family's wealth. The father argues that the older son was never at risk, so they should all rejoice together that the younger one, who was once "dead", was alive and well.

The moral hazard is obviously not displayed in this passage. In fact, based on the experience, both sons should in fact feel compelled to repeat the adventure again: if the father is going to receive them with open arms no matter what, taking off and enjoying life for a while is much more attractive than the work in the farm and the house discipline. Admittedly, in the figurative sense of Luke's Gospel, where the prodigal son represents those engaged in sinful work (tax collectors, bankers and prostitutes), once they admit the wrongness of their live and change it for the better there is little risk that they will relapse.

These thoughts came to me on occasion of a discussion of the different professional performance between my brothers and me. I was always an excellent student and grew up to a solid (but admittedly not very shiny) career in space exploration. Jack struggled a bit in school, but through his charisma and deep engagement is now the executive manager of a company in the leisure business with more than 300 employees. David was also a bit of a joyrider in school, where he managed to get acceptable marks doing close to nothing but then got disillusioned of university after one year in computer science and tumbled around for close to ten years before he decided to straighten up his life, is now on his way to completing medical school next year and has a beautiful two-month old baby. It is out of the question that we are all very happy for him, in fact we had been worrying about him for many years, but that should not obscure the fact that Jack and I were righteous and hard-working all the time.

Reading these lines again I have just realized that they might sound a bit jealous and even mean, but they should not be interpreted that way. I am honestly relieved that he has found his way and wish him all the best. But sometimes the righteous also deserve praise, if only to say "how happy I am to see that you never got in serious trouble". Have a nice evening.