Dealing with people who’s help you need.

Sometimes people are helpful because they are nice, sometimes they are helpful because it is in their interest to be helpful. If they work for a company motivated by profit they have a reason, an incentive, to be helpful. If they work for a government (taxpayer) funded institution, they have less incentive to be helpful. The reason why someone is helpful is less important than the fact that they are helpful. One cannot simply assume that people have the right motivation regardless of the institutional structure. One has to consider the rewards to being helpful and the costs of not being helpful.

This simple logic seems to defy millions of people. Somehow they get stuck focusing on evaluating the morality of intentions rather than the moral desirability of outcomes, regardless of the intentions that produce them - the result of human action though not of design.

As David Hume suggested, government institutions should be designed on the premise, that all men are rascals. And Adam Smith pointed out that government is sensibly designed to accommodate the worst of humanity, and not rely on the best.

Put in economic terms, we can say that most people’s self interest does not prioritize duty and good deeds over everything else. That is not a criticism nor is it cynical. It is just a recognition that human beings are fallible and limited.