The Honor System

I've never been one to dine and dash, but since my travels to Italy, I have noted the opportunity many a time. The people here just let you enjoy your food at your own leisure…to the extent that after you’re served, it can be difficult to flag them down for the bill at all. But the more I thought about it, the more I noticed that several things here present the opportunity to dash away, sans payment.

You see the same thing in bars too. In many bars (or what we would be more likely to call cafés at home) you order at the bar, drink your coffee, then walk over to the register to pay. It would be the simplest thing in the world to just walk out (especially because they’re often so crowded). In some bars you are supposed to pay first, then present your receipt to the bar. But even then, the barista is usually in too big of a hurry to read your ticket – they just ask you what you paid for. Not exactly an opportunity to steal, but certainly to upgrade for free.

The other big one is public transit. At home, we have a carefully designed, one-way path that will not allow entrance without payment first. But here in Italy, you can get on or off anytime/anywhere you please. In fact, it’s up to you to buy your ticket at a tabbachi shop prior to getting on board. And it also your responsibility to validate your ticket once you’re on board. But of course, no one is checking your ticket for validation…or if you even have one for that matter. It seems to be that the possibility that someone MIGHT check your ticket is enough to keep people honest (if you’re caught without a ticket or without a validated ticket – BIG FINES).

I bring all this up not to confess that I’m constantly stealing, because I’m not (though I have taken a couple bus rides without paying, but sometimes it’s not possible to buy a ticket and when you have no other way home….), but simply because I think it’s interesting that so many public systems are running on the honor system. At home, just about the only thing on the honor system are those really lame, cardboard, in-office snack boxes…and I think people mostly steal from those. I have no idea if these systems are successful here (as in, everyone always pays) or not, but I have a feeling they’re losing many a dollar on their tourists that way. At least American tourists, anyway. Are we really so conditioned to acting responsibly only if there are repercussions if we don't, that we can no longer decipher right from wrong on our own? Are we really so self-righteous to think that if we can get away with it, then we deserve it? Augh, the thought of it is morally repulsive – no wonder Europeans don’t want to be Americans: we don’t exactly come off well.