Disappointing Results of a Nice Idea

Once again it is that time when we give up a dining hall meal to the homeless. Here's how it works: You sign up in advance to skip dinner one night, and Harvard University Dining Services (HUDS) donates $1.50 to a local food-for-the-homeless program. You go and eat at Chef Chow's, and in addition to the warm massaging of General Gau's Chicken Balls, you have the feeling of charity and sacrifice in your MSG-coated stomach.

Well, fine, but have you considered looking in that "Ec-10" book sitting untouched on your shelf to figure out why it is that, when it costs us about $7.50 per dinner, only $1.50 of it is actually going to the homeless? Or, for an advanced problem, how we could accomplish the same thing much more efficiently, and perhaps even do better?

First, where is that $6 going? The answer is that it never existed in the first place, because $7.50 is the average cost per dinner for the entire operation--not the marginal cost of producing one more dinner. The $1.50 donated is probably a better estimate of the amount saved by one student's not partaking that evening. Why the large discrepancy? Simple--raw food is cheap, labor is expensive. HUDS cannot, nor should it, lay off members of its dining hall staff for that evening. Hence, 4/5 of the cost of a meal is being paid in wages, regardless of whether a student actually eats it. Only 1/5, $1.50, remains to be donated to the homeless.

Now, let us examine this plan as compared to the status quo. First, let us make the assumption that the value of a dining hall meal to us is $7.50--a conservative estimate of the opportunity cost saved by not eating an average meal in the Square. There are three parties to consider in our "society": the student, HUDS and the homeless. By participating in this program we make the following changes per meal: to homeless +$1.50; to student -$7.50; to society -$6. Even though the $6 in the cost of an individual dinner is somewhat fictitious, it becomes very real when we pay it to eat, without any additional benefit to the homeless--i.e., when it is lost to society.

How can we eliminate this loss? Let me propose two plans, the first of which is probably objectionable, though quite simple; the second quite serious, though perhaps complicated to administer.

Plan One: Bring Tupperware to the dininghall, smuggle out an extra dinner, and give it to a homeless person. The charge per meal? To homeless: +$7.50 (remember, a meal is a meal, regardless of who eats it); to students: no change; to HUDS: -$1.50; to society: +$6. Suddenly, society benefits by quite a bit. Simple theft has proven $12 more efficient to society than the current program, with the exact same benefit to the homeless.

All right, then, it's immoral, you say. Okay, Plan Two: Some evening, one of the house dining halls closes to students, who may then eat at any other dining hall they wish. (They could even be assigned, so that the added students would not create enough extra labor at any one house to be noticeable.) That dining hall hosts a dinner for the homeless, feeding hundreds of Cambridge's needy. The change per meal? Exactly the same as my other plan, since HUDS is simply producing extra meals with no compensation. Once again, society gains by $6, rather than losing $6.

Thus, I have three suggestions. First, try to convince the powers that be to adopt Plan Two. Second, if you don't mind being a minor criminal, participate in the Tupperware plan yourself. Third, if you do participate in the current program, take Martin S. Feldstein '61 out to dinner with you. Take up a collection to pay for his meal--society owes him at least a plate of General Gau's.

Douglas R. Miller is a sophomore living in Lowell House