It’s easy to find people describing the moral argument against government run social programs (forced charity encourages selfishness) but I don’t think I’ve ever heard a more compelling logical argument for the negative consequences of substituting an institutional approach to a problem for a solution based on individual initiative than this one.
With no hint of bias in his tale, Scott relates his observations of the changes that took place as a charitable action by some individuals employees at the IRS to help one of their co-workers became institutionalized. Soon employees began to actively opt out of participating inbecause of the changes that came from trying to make the program fair for everyone.