This is an important topic related to scarce resources that I thought we would touch on- especially considering some of the major social/political problems at large today- but didn't.
The questions I'm considering is these: What happens when we promise resources to a group of people or peoples and then come about scarce resources and can no longer keep that promise? Also: What happens when we promise resources to a group of people or peoples when those resources are already scarce?
One at a time, then.
The first question is very clearly tied to the Social Security problem the U.S. is facing. The government made promises (and in some cases, deals) for Social Security when citizens reach a certain age. Now, due to economy, debt, and financial problems, that promise for Social Security benefits is threatening to be taken from the citizens it was promised to (and- it's important to consider- citizens who may have made major decisions based around that promise). The question here is what the right thing to do is. What is the government morally obligated to do, if anything? If they're obligated to keep their promise, then how? What if the means to keep this promise leads to suffering of others?
Now, from a realistic point of view, this doesn't seem to be too much of a problem. Though I have limited knowledge on the workings of government spending and funding, it seems as if some of the unnecessary surplus of money that's given to military defense spending can be cut back and given to Social Security. I don't know if that's enough, but it's something. I'm quite sure there are some other less relevant and less important areas receiving funding that could share with Social Security as well, but the overarching question still stands. What is one to do when a promise is made of granting resources, then over time those resources become scarce to the point where keeping that promise becomes difficult?
The second question I posed is one relevant to the Syrian Refugee (and in fact, immigration in general) problem our country is facing. I subscribe to the argument that although I think people in worse-off countries should be allowed to move to better countries, the U.S. should limit immigration purely because of our already limited resources. The general thought is "how can we help others when we ourselves are in need of help?" A common response is "Well, even in our not so great state of affairs, our country is still doing better than theirs and therefore we should let them in." The problem with that argument is that it's only true for so long. We can only continue to accept so many immigrants (and continue to put our already scarce resources towards helping them) until we have no resources left. Furthermore, we have people in our country suffering from some of the same things they are suffering from in their countries (hunger, homelessness, etc.). By donating resources to immigrants, we take away those resources for the people already living here- and not even just the people suffering. By dedicating these resources to immigrants, citizens who were previously above the poverty line can be struck down to below it.
Consider Singers argument, perhaps the argument most concerned with welfare of others. Even he says we should give to others until it causes comparable moral harm to ourselves to do so. With immigration and with the refugees, we are giving to others, but in doing so causing a great deal of harm to people who are already part of the country, thus bringing the benefits for everyone in the country down and causing more suffering overall.
Now I don't think merely being born in the U.S. entitles us to anything more than another country- which is something we discussed while on the immigration topic. It seems though that there's a difference between this thought and the conclusion that we should accept everyone into the United States and give resources to anyone that wants to come here. Often the people suffering from increasingly scarce resources are people that were at one point working peoples who earned the resources they were given and that are slowly becoming more scarce. Immigrants didn't have the opportunity to do this, no, but that doesn't change the fact that something was earned and is now not being granted.
I suppose the larger idea here is that the U.S. has limited resources, so limited that it can't (or fails to) provide for everyone already under its care. To take on more people (as the promise of accepting thousands of Syrian refugees would do) would only create more suffering. We can't help until we are in a position to do so, and currently, we are not. So now, what's to be done? What do we do now that a promise of resources has been made to a group of people at the cost of those resources being given to people who the resources were already going to? It seems heavily problematic, and I'm interested in hearing other thoughts.
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