I get that the free-rider problem is a real problem in all societies. We can’t support an infinite number of free riders, I know. And I acknowledge companies that offer benefits to spouses and dependents have the right to limit those benefits to just the spouses and dependents they originally specified. And I get that nature abhors a vacuum and that an organism will adapt to fit any niche available.
But if you are a smart and enterprising human being, and you see a system that’s broken and full of perverse incentives, what’s the correct and moral response? Do you work to fix the system? Or do you insert yourself into the system and try to capture some of those perverse incentives for yourself?
A fly must lay its eggs, and an egg needs a place to hatch into a maggot, and if that’s the torn flesh of a host organism, well, that’s how nature works.
But most humans have choices about how they want to survive. And if you make the choice to be the parasite because it’s faster and more profitable than cleaning the wound, than maybe you need to take another look at your soul.
Then again, we’re all parasites in one way or another. Free riders morally or economically or both. Nobody pulls all the weight all the time.
Secretly Ironic 