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Ban on beggars 'dangerous to personal liberty'
(Shanghai Star)
Updated: 2004-02-09 09:31

Recently some cities, such as Beijing and Suzhou, were said to be about to introduce city regulations forbidding the entry of beggars into certain areas and public places, like the subway or main streets.

And Shanghai is watching. But these upcoming or potential regulations are already subject to criticism, viewed by quite a few Chinese commentators even as "dangerous to personal liberty" (see Southern Weekend, January 8).

Yet it seems a little unfair for the government to take all the blame. What is it to have gone to great lengths to enact such a regulation which ends up in waves of criticisms? Sometimes those critical intellectuals are so annoying - they never cook but always taste and comment.

But the reason why the commentators are talking this time may be because it is a ban on a particular class of people rather than on certain acts in public places. Take smoking for example: regulations are supposed to ban smoking in public places but they do not, and it is unreasonable to deny smokers entry to public places. Therefore, in the present case, it seems that it is the beggars themselves rather than the acts of begging which are disturbing and are not to be tolerated.

It is true that the act of begging produces a kind of externality (a side-effect upon others). But many other acts produce externalities. The motor car you ride to work produces such externalities (I am expected to develop severe lung diseases in less than 10 years while the benefit of fast transportation is confined to you alone). And not all externalities must be regulated by the government. In this respect Ronald Coase has already adequately instructed us that private arrangements of rights may sometimes be more effective and desirable than government arrangements.

Governments may take risks when making judgments on behalf of its citizens. It may take the blame not so much because it is less clever than its citizens, nor because it knows less than its citizens. It may take the blame because by making decisions for the benefit of all citizens it cannot avoid making judgments in the interest of a particular class of citizens, thus inevitably endangering the concept of fairness. The government, in the words of R. Dworkin, should treat all its citizens equally, instead.

If every pedestrian hates beggars cadging off them, just let the pedestrians themselves refuse to indulge the beggars and, who knows, some may even like giving them money?. What's the effect of the government substituting its own judgement or its own preference for that of its citizens other than giving itself a heavy burden to bear? The government should act to ensure that its intervention is targeted at every kind of similar act rather than a particular kind, like begging in the present case.

If a person can stop you in the subway and say that he or she is a volunteer for the Red Cross and asks if you would like to make some donation for a funding project or if another person can stop you in the street and says that he or she is from CNN and wants to have your opinion about, say, gays, then why cannot a beggar stop you and say that he or she wants some money from you? If the government prohibits begging, it should prohibit all these similar "harassing" acts instead of singling out begging.

When two private rights clash, it is advisable for the government to allow the two private rights to settle the clash by themselves. If no settlement can be reached, then it is never too late for the government to intervene.

But of course, as Coase tells us, the government should first define the preliminary rights of the private parties. In the case of begging, the authorities could merely stipulate that if any person harasses another in a public place to an unlawful extent or disturbs public order, whether this person is a TV reporter, a volunteer, or a beggar, then legal action and discipline will be taken against them.

And actually this task has already been done, in existing laws and regulations.

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