Give honour payment systems a chance
Honour systems operate all over the world, but not in Britain. Are high levels of social inequality solely to blame?
Phil Hall
I am used to using the rail and underground system in London. Here we have high prices, turnstiles and guards. Advertising campaigns try to intimidate us with posters showing mugshots of fare evaders with criminal records. Teachers, students and City workers stare down from the walls and CCTV cameras spotted with pigeon shit point down blankly at grubby platforms in run-down busy stations. It feels Orwellian and depressing. (The bus system, I'll admit, is much better.)
And so, when I went to Munich to celebrate the 99th birthday of my great uncle this month and used the S-Bahn and U-Bahn system, it was a joy. The German government was actually trusting me to pay for my ticket and use their clean and efficient system responsibly. And so I did – with pleasure.
Honour payment systems seem to work in Germany. There you pick up your newspaper, from a simple perspex box and drop the money in afterwards. In Berlin they even have honour bars and restaurants, where you can eat as much as you like and pay whatever you think the food was worth.
What stops us from using honour payment systems in the UK? Isn't trust one of the hallmarks of our society? No one steals the milk from our doorsteps. No one shoots the ducks in our parks or steals flowers from the flowerbeds. Everyone takes their turn. The level of social trust we still share in Britain is one of the best things about it. The gradual onset of a surveillance society belies this fact. The surveillance society clearly goes against the grain.
We are hungry for more trust in this country. When Tom Algie in Settle left his shop wide open all day he found the honesty box full of money along with messages from people thanking him for trusting them. But of course, honour payment systems probably work best in small communities where peer pressure is potent.
If, as Paul Zack and Stephen Nack found, the level of honour and social trust in a society is an important indicator of its health and economic success, then introducing more honour systems might make sense. They may increase social trust.
Honour systems can be effective. In optimum conditions the efficiency of honour payment system can rise above 90%. And of course significant savings are made when a large part of the enforcement system is dispensed with.
Moreover, ultimately, honour payment systems do still have sharp teeth. If a system that relies on trust is abused the result can, according to the Wikipedia entry, be "community shame, loss of status, loss of a personal sense of integrity and pride or in extreme situations, banishment from one's community". Strong stuff.
On the other hand, there are higher levels of social inequality in Britain than Germany, which would probably make it more difficult to implement honour systems, and, if given the choice, how many of us would voluntarily pay the high fares charged by the monopoly privatised rail companies?
But the lucky city dwellers of Munich do trust each other to use their public transport system properly, and consequently their experience of travelling through their city is better than ours. If only we could follow their example.
Honour systems operate all over the world, but not in Britain. Are high levels of social inequality solely to blame?
Phil Hall
I am used to using the rail and underground system in London. Here we have high prices, turnstiles and guards. Advertising campaigns try to intimidate us with posters showing mugshots of fare evaders with criminal records. Teachers, students and City workers stare down from the walls and CCTV cameras spotted with pigeon shit point down blankly at grubby platforms in run-down busy stations. It feels Orwellian and depressing. (The bus system, I'll admit, is much better.)
And so, when I went to Munich to celebrate the 99th birthday of my great uncle this month and used the S-Bahn and U-Bahn system, it was a joy. The German government was actually trusting me to pay for my ticket and use their clean and efficient system responsibly. And so I did – with pleasure.
Honour payment systems seem to work in Germany. There you pick up your newspaper, from a simple perspex box and drop the money in afterwards. In Berlin they even have honour bars and restaurants, where you can eat as much as you like and pay whatever you think the food was worth.
What stops us from using honour payment systems in the UK? Isn't trust one of the hallmarks of our society? No one steals the milk from our doorsteps. No one shoots the ducks in our parks or steals flowers from the flowerbeds. Everyone takes their turn. The level of social trust we still share in Britain is one of the best things about it. The gradual onset of a surveillance society belies this fact. The surveillance society clearly goes against the grain.
We are hungry for more trust in this country. When Tom Algie in Settle left his shop wide open all day he found the honesty box full of money along with messages from people thanking him for trusting them. But of course, honour payment systems probably work best in small communities where peer pressure is potent.
If, as Paul Zack and Stephen Nack found, the level of honour and social trust in a society is an important indicator of its health and economic success, then introducing more honour systems might make sense. They may increase social trust.
Honour systems can be effective. In optimum conditions the efficiency of honour payment system can rise above 90%. And of course significant savings are made when a large part of the enforcement system is dispensed with.
Moreover, ultimately, honour payment systems do still have sharp teeth. If a system that relies on trust is abused the result can, according to the Wikipedia entry, be "community shame, loss of status, loss of a personal sense of integrity and pride or in extreme situations, banishment from one's community". Strong stuff.
On the other hand, there are higher levels of social inequality in Britain than Germany, which would probably make it more difficult to implement honour systems, and, if given the choice, how many of us would voluntarily pay the high fares charged by the monopoly privatised rail companies?
But the lucky city dwellers of Munich do trust each other to use their public transport system properly, and consequently their experience of travelling through their city is better than ours. If only we could follow their example.
The problem with honour systems is that you don't get to deprive poor people of the cool things that rich people use. And you don't get to put so many poor people in jail.
ReplyDeleteExactly Paul.
ReplyDelete