what i find irritating is the suggestion that it's in any way less of a "real job" than, say, working a cash register somewhere. neither sitting in a park somewhere playing a tune, nor standing in a store somewhere giving somebody change is "contributing to society" in any kind of meaningful way. the difference is merely that sitting in a park isn't painfully boring.
the more important question to ask is why we force people to make all of these absurd choices as to how they'd prefer to waste their time in order to continue to eat.
i understand that i'm lucky to live somewhere with a progressive social system. it's not perfect, but it's far better than it could be.
when i walk by people asking me for change, i often wonder why they don't apply for disability - and have suggested it more than once. something like "if you applied for disability, you wouldn't have to do this.".
sometimes, people will be frank - it's not enough to pay for an addiction. that's fine, but then you need to understand what you're paying for when you walk by them. other times, people will tell me they're not aware of what actually exists.
the most common response, though, is this sort of top-down hierarchical socially enforced calvinism that makes people feel ashamed for taking assistance. in their mind, they seem to conceive of begging as labour and consequently a more moral choice.
in my mind, that's a huge problem.
when you really break things apart, calvinism (or protestantism in general) is really the absolute root cause of almost all of the problems we face as a society.
