I saw a TikTok last week posted by a guy in his 20s who had moved to the Netherlands from a ‘more corrupt’ country in Eastern Europe. He was talking about calling his parents to share that he’d failed the Dutch driving test and they asked why he couldn’t ‘just buy a license?’.
His point was how grateful he was to live in a country where there is so little corruption that the thought of trying to bribe his way to a driving license needn’t ever cross his mind.
When you live in a country with day-to-day low level corruption, learning how and when to use bribes is simply a necessary part of life. Mentally modelling the risk of getting caught, the size of the bribe and so on, is its own mental load. The upside is you don’t need to learn how to pass the driving test.
A real example in my life is the fact we can very easily classify Ziggy as an ’emotional support animal’ in the USA, thereby avoiding about $500 in rental fees for our apartment. This requires me getting a licensed psychologist to recognise that Ziggy supports my mental health. Which obviously he does, with this perspective every dog is an ‘ESA’. Every rental agent we spoke to in Austin told us that everyone does this and its normal, but I can’t help but feel a bit dirty about doing it.
I’m happy to declare right now that I will classify Ziggy as an ESA this way, and if I lived in a corrupt country I would also buy a driving license. The main argument for doing so is that it’s fair. If no one else is following the rules then why should I, it’s also a rational response the incentives in front of me. But in doing so I still think I would lose a bit of my integrity, and feel slightly uncomfortable about it.
Fairness is deeply important, not just to humans but also other social animals. In the very relatable 2003 capuchin monkey fairness experiment a monkey was happy to carry out a task (handing a rock back to the researcher) and was rewarded with slices of cucumber. The monkey was happy to continue until he saw the monkey in the next cage was being rewarded with grapes for the exact same task. The first monkey then refused to keep playing and sometimes threw the cucumber out of the cage. It also rattled the cage. The most dramatic reactions came when the second monkey got a grape for doing nothing at all.
The point of the experiment is that the monkey was happy to work for cucumber only until he realised his peer was getting a better deal. I too would be happy to take the driving test until I learned that the 20 learners before me all paid a bribe for their license.
I think it’s this sense of fairness which is truly at the heart of the small-boats issue in the UK. Every human crossing the channel on a small boat is responding rationally to the incentives in front of them. The risk of a tragedy (99.9% survival rate, higher if you are young and fit) is weighed against the cost of a seat (£1200-£5000) and the rewards of a successful crossing (a home in a country where for many reasons it’s easy to live and work undocumented).
Add to that that the official channels for becoming a refugee in the UK are slow and would put you in a queue for years.
To judge or hate these people for doing the wrong thing is unnecessarily cruel and unhelpful. But also to judge every individual as being worthy of refugee status just for the fact they are trying to cross, is lazy and convenient.
The problem is that the system is dysfunctional and unfair. Because just as we have no way of knowing if someone who buys a driving license truly knows how to drive, we have no way of knowing which passengers on these boats would qualify for refugee status. In both cases there is a test to ensure fair outcomes that is being circumvented. Also just as I would feel guilty buying a driving license, but I would still do it. I’m sure most people crossing the channel also feel a sense of guilt about what they’re doing.
I want fairness for the people who want to do the right thing, I think we all do, even the capuchin monkeys do. I would still want that fairness even if I live in a world where I pay a bribe for a driving license.
It should not just be on the individual to ignore the loopholes and all their incentives to do the wrong thing. The system needs to get its shit together.
I know many people familiar with the stress and cost of migrating between countries the lawful way. These people deserve the dignity of knowing that the immigration system has integrity and functions correctly.
I want there to be a functional process for the vulnerable, queer refugee to find a new home in the UK. I also want a watertight system for registering as a resident and having a known status. I want it to be practically impossible to successfully cross on a boat.
Last thought on “judge the system, not the individual”:
When back in Longframlington I like to take the dog to ‘Thrunton Woods’, there’s a small car-park where you can start a few trails. There used to be a bin here for dog-poo bags, and for whatever reason there isn’t one anymore.
Instead there is a pile of dog-poo bags where the bin used to be. I would guess that everyone who added to this pile wasn’t really happy about doing it, they probably felt a little guilty, but nobody wants to carry a bag of poo in their car and it is obviously less bad to add to an existing pile of trash vs. randomly throwing it somewhere else.
I can imagine someone photographing this pile, taking to facebook and trying to shame everyone who dropped their dog-poo bag in this pile. That person would have a point technically. It is littering and it is wrong.
But nothing would come of this public shaming, it would just add to the misery already caused by there not being a bin.
So as natural as it is to blame individuals, let’s focus our energy on fixing broken systems.
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