Homelessness is a state of deprivation. Those who are homeless need shelter to be safe; they don’t have it. They need a toilet for basic bodily functions; they don’t have one. They need a shower to keep clean; they don’t have that, either.

Because such deprivation dramatically affects the well-being of people who are homeless, public discussion of homelessness tends to focus on whether and to what extent the government should carry out anti-homelessness policy as a way of improving people’s overall quality of life.

Some philosophers have argued that while homelessness is clearly a state of deprivation, it is also a condition in which a person’s freedom is profoundly compromised.

These theorists insist a society that cherishes freedom – such as the U.S. – must implement anti-homelessness policy as a way of liberating people who lack housing.

Because the number of people experiencing homelessness continues to rise at a record rate, these academic ideas have become increasingly relevant to the real world. I am a philosopher interested in exploring the moral dimensions of homelessness, as well as shining a light on underdiscussed aspects of it. I believe that public debate would benefit greatly from increased attention to the ways homelessness limits Americans’ freedom.

Freedom to be somewhere

Since homelessness is usually discussed in terms of deprivation, the claim that homelessness has much to do with freedom can seem surprising.

Freedom is commonly understood as the ability to do what one chooses without being interfered with. My freedom is limited if you lock me in a cell or place a boulder on the street I want to drive down.

Homelessness, on the other hand, seems at first glance like a condition in which a person is mostly able to do as they choose, albeit without important resources that would make their life better.

The philosopher and legal theorist Jeremy Waldron sees things differently. Waldron says that private property often serves to interfere with people’s choices. If a person wants to walk in New York City from midtown Manhattan to Harlem, others’ property interferes with their ability to choose the most direct route. If a person wants to see a particular Andy Warhol painting, the fact that it is kept at a private residence interferes with their ability to choose to view it.

In itself, this isn’t a problem, as no one should be free to go anywhere and do anything they want. The trouble, says Waldron, comes when a person who is homeless does not have private property that they are able to occupy, free from interference. In such instances, the person will be confined to public spaces, such as sidewalks and parks.

But public spaces themselves are highly regulated through local ordinances, limiting who may use them and for what purposes.

A person who is homeless and sleeps on a public bench will often be told by the police to move. Someone who sets up a tent on a sidewalk will usually have it confiscated. Someone who urinates or defecates in a park can be arrested.

Now you can see why some think that homelessness compromises a person’s freedom. Sleeping and relieving oneself are necessary, life-sustaining tasks.

But as Waldron points out, “Everything that is done has to be done somewhere. No one is free to perform an action unless there is somewhere he is free to perform it.”

Given the way society protects private property and regulates public spaces, it seems that people who are homeless are left with no space at all in which they are free to do the things they need to do in order to live. This is about as severe an infringement on freedom as you can imagine, and Waldron’s point is that a society that loves freedom simply cannot tolerate it.

Anti-homelessness is not just about benevolence and generosity, then. It is about protecting liberty.

Freedom from others

Of course, people who are homeless do sleep and relieve themselves. So, in what sense do they actually lack the freedom to do so?

The political philosopher Christopher Essert argues that Waldron’s analysis should be taken one step further by considering its implications for interpersonal relations.

Since a person who is homeless has nowhere to freely perform life-sustaining tasks, typically they will either seek permission from someone to use their property, use the property and hope to not be noticed or, at worst, seek forgiveness. Either way, they depend upon the grace of another in order to do the things they need to do.

This puts people who are homeless at the mercy of those who have property.

Whether a homeless person has a place to sleep or whether they are arrested for sleeping somewhere without permission is completely determined by the wishes of others. Keesha might sleep on Felix’s couch for a few nights. But as soon as Felix is in a bad mood, he can throw her out. Or Felix might make access to his couch conditional upon her attending church services, supporting his preferred political candidate or performing sexual acts. What she does and does not do is now up to Felix.

Essert connects this set of observations to what is called a “republican” conception of freedom. This way of understanding freedom is less about whether a person is actually interfered with and more about the way they are placed under the arbitrary power of another.

The intuitive idea is that if someone else always has the power to determine your choices, then you aren’t free. Since a homeless person is always on property over which someone else has authority, they are always, writes Essert, “under the power of others, dependent on them, dominated by them, unfree.”

In the U.S. especially, arguments that appeal to freedom are taken very seriously. Even those who insist that it is not the government’s job to ensure everyone a good quality of life believe that it must ensure freedom. Even those whose ears close when they hear calls for charity and beneficence seem to pay attention when freedom is at stake.

By proposing this way of seeing the life of someone who is homeless, then, philosophers have raised the possibility that allowing homelessness to persist contradicts values that are, at heart, fundamentally American.

Paul Schofield, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Bates College

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

As the U.S. holiday travel season picks up, many people are noticing that their frequent flyer benefits aren’t going as far as they used to.

In September 2023, Delta Air Lines revamped its frequent flyer program to make it tougher to earn status — a tiered system offering travel privileges based on the reward points earned — only to partially reverse course a month later and make it easier. American Airlines also made big changes to its loyalty scheme in 2022 and minor changes in spring 2023. And British Airways recently announced that it is adjusting the way it awards points for travel.

We are business school professors who study rewards programs. Many people think flying is a miserable experience, and having status sometimes makes flights better. So it’s only fair that frequent flyers are asking why it’s seemingly harder to obtain such status.

Why miles are a multibillion-dollar business

One big idea to understand is that airlines don’t earn very much money, if any at all, from ticket sales. This is mainly due to the highly competitive and capital-intensive structure of the airline industry, which often leads to reduced profit margins. Instead, they make their profits from bag fees, ticket change fees and — importantly — frequent flyer programs.

On many airlines, there are two ways to earn status. One is to fly a lot. But that means spending time in crowded airports. The other way is to spend a lot of money using a rewards credit card.

Frequent flyer programs, coupled with rewards credit cards, are very profitable for airlines. For example, Delta’s latest annual report shows last year that the company earned US$5.7 billion from selling credit card miles. Given Delta only made $3.6 billion in profits, this frequent flyer program clearly boosts the bottom line.

Designing the optimal rewards program

Many types of businesses, not just airlines, offer rewards programs. From a company’s perspective, a well-designed loyalty program should cost little or nothing, give customers great value and prevent them from using a competitor.

Frequent flyer programs fit this bill: Giving some passengers the ability to board early or access to a lounge costs airlines almost nothing, but many customers desire it. Plus, the chase for status or free flights locks people into using only one airline.

Much of the appeal of status programs comes from their exclusivity. This leaves airlines with a problem: where to set the bar. A low bar means nearly everyone gains status. But customers get no value being allowed to board first if almost everyone on the plane can also do it, and airport lounges aren’t a haven when travelers can’t find empty seats. At the same time, setting the bar too high results in empty lounges and unhappy customers.

Striking the right balance is tough, since the number of flyers is constantly changing due to economic conditions. When the economy is doing well, people want to travel. This gives airlines an incentive to tighten frequent flyer rules. When the economy is doing poorly, people stay home and airlines relax their rules.

For example, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, few people flew, so airlines made it easy to earn or keep status. Today, with the economy doing better and flying back to pre-pandemic levels, airlines are making it much tougher.

Many airlines are switching from a frequent flyer status model based on miles traveled to one based on dollars spent. This move aligns with the main design principle of these programs: The benefits a company gives to customers must mirror the value it gets from them.

Who pays for all those rewards, anyway?

Rewards programs are very profitable for airlines and their credit card partners. But for cardholders, the value proposition is less clear. These cards promise “free” rewards, but don’t actually deliver anything for free.

First, rewards cards often come with an annual fee. Fees typically range from around $100 per year for a simple airlines reward card to $600 for a card that gives lounge access. Second, since many people don’t pay off their credit card balance each month, these card companies make billions of dollars charging people interest.

Credit card companies also charge merchants roughly 2.5% every time a customer swipes a reward card — what’s known as the interchange fee. The more generous the card, the higher the fee merchants have to pay. In general, when sellers encounter many consumers using reward cards, they raise prices to offset the additional cost.

What do all these fees mean for the typical flyer? People who pay off their reward card balances in full every month get roughly back the extra amount they pay in fees and charges. People who don’t pay off their balances, or who use debit cards or cash, pay more so that reward card holders get “free” travel. The result is that poorer and less financially savvy people end up subsidizing the flights of richer people.

A boom time for airlines, less so for passengers

Since the deregulation of air travel in the 1970s, airlines have gone through boom and bust cycles. Right now, it’s a boom for airlines and a bust for people looking for frequent flyer status. There’s no reason for airlines to be as rewarding today as they were in the past. Planes are full of people willing to pay with money. Sometime in the future, however, it will reverse, and it will be a boom time for flyers looking for status when planes begin having empty capacity.

In the meantime, what should you do? Our general advice is that if you are going to use a reward card, choose a card that gives cash back, not one that gives airplane miles. Good old cash is far more useful than miles. Miles can be devalued by an airline at any moment. Plus, even the most elite status doesn’t help much when your plane is delayed — and that’s happening more and more these days.

Jay L. Zagorsky, Clinical Associate Professor of Markets, Public Policy and Law, Boston University and H. Sami Karaca, Professor of Business Analytics, Boston University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.