David Eckel of Clayton, NC won the Great American Think-Off Competition. The 2010 debate question was, “Do the wealthy have an obligation to help the poor?” Mr. Eckel argued that there is no obligation.
Here is an excerpt from the winning essay:
I began to see in the stories John?s friends told to me that what the wealthy individual enjoys but may not immediately appreciate is true privilege, the opportunity and the choice to deploy her wealth in the service of others, and with it the responsibility to do so wisely.
That privilege could be mistaken for obligation. But obligation is not a fuzzy feeling or some amorphous motive; it is a sharply edged concept explicitly backed by force of law. Therein lies its downfall.
Force of obligation deprives the wealthy giver of her choice, transforming her gift into a payment. She no longer knows the joy of giving but the sting of a taking. Her incentive, satisfaction in giving, is converted to gratification in keeping; she will reasonably turn her attention toward retaining wealth.
Force presents the poor recipient with Mephistophelean temptation. Gone is his genuine gratitude in receiving a gift, his resolve to make the most of it and to give back in turn, resolve borne of realization that his good fortune did not have to happen. Instead he must either refuse the taken property or accept it with guilt or worse, a sense of entitlement. His dependence and resentment soon follow; he will naturally turn his attention toward demanding more.
The MIT graduate describes himself as a “writer and philosopher moonlighting as a computer and small business management consultant.”
