What deters me from using the London Underground more than I do is the risk of finding myself within earshot of a busker. Is one within one’s moral rights, when encountering a busker singing out of tune, to remove a small sum of money from his collecting hat by way of compensation? I view the money in the hat as common to the travellers until such time as the busker actually pockets it.
Yours is certainly a cute principle for meting out summary justice in an often cruel world.
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Instead of routinely adding 15 per cent to an already bloated restaurant bill, we could demand that a waiter compensate us for his sloppy service. Or, say an item in a shop offends us (maybe you don’t like its packaging, or the fact that the manufacturer uses Ainsley Harriott to advertise the product on TV): we could help ourselves to other goods from the store to offset the distress caused by the offending item. Tracey Emin could pay us to view her art.
Perhaps it’s unfortunate, but the world doesn’t work like that.
Donations to a guitar-thrashing busker are a one-way flow. Were we all entitled to claim financial compensation for being ambushed by dispiriting ambient music, then Mick Hucknall and Celine Dion would be paying out so much that their accountants might be advising them that their income wasn’t exceeding outgoings by a sufficient margin to make singing a viable career option. In any case, the money in a busker’s hat is not yours to take. It was given by commuters who wished the busker to enjoy it, and who have a right to see that he does (although I suppose it’s also possible that it was given by people similar to you, who hoped that when the busker stooped to pocket his takings it would mean a brief respite from his singing).
FACING A DILEMMA
Have you got a dilemma of your own?
Write to Modern Morals, Times features, 1 Pennington Street, London, E98 1TT. E-mail: modernmorals@thetimes.co.uk