This post is a continuation of my previous blog on who really cares about the needy, as I continue to work through the book Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism, by Arthur C. Brooks. I want to work through the third chapter, appropriately titled “Other People’s Money.” Brooks notes that as one might think, politicians are uniquely situated when it comes to handing out favors at no expense to themselves (in other words, at your expense but with no thanks to you). But he also notes that we see the same behavior in vast swaths of “regular” people as well. A significant number of Americans, and Europeans as well, consider themselves charitable simply because they support policies of income redistribution through taxation (my emphasis added). And this does have an affect on private giving. One would assume that those people most concerned and vocal about economic inequality would be the most likely to give to charity. But that is wrong. The data demonstrates that for many people, the desire to donate other people’s money displaces the act of giving one’s own. People who favor government income redistribution are significantly less likely to behave charitably than those who do not. Even if the policies they support do not come into effect, they are still far less likely to donate to charity. For many Americans, Brooks, argues, political opinions are substitute for personal checks, but people who value economic freedom, and who are opposed to forced income distribution, are far more charitable.
The reality is the political left is effectively conceding a tremendous amount of moral authority in deed to the right wing when it comes to charity, while their words indicate otherwise. In 1996, a large sample of Americans was asked to respond to this statement: “The government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality.” Forty-three percent of respondents disagreed with this statement; 33 percent agreed. However, when it comes to charity, these two groups were radically different. Not only were those who disagreed significantly more likely to give money to charity than those who agreed, they also gave away, on average, four times as much money per year on religious giving, and three and a half times as much to nonreligious charities. A 2001 poll asked respondents to agree or disagree with the statement that “the government has a basic responsibility to take care of people who can’t take care of themselves.” A large majority (75 percent) agreed with the statement. But the 25 percent who disagreed were more likely than the others to give money both to secular and religious causes. Even when controls are set for income, education, religion, age, gender, marital status, race, and political views, people in favor of forced income redistribution are privately less charitable than those who oppose it, regardless of how much money they earn.
So why does support for government income redistribution efforts suppress charity? According to Brooks, the most straightforward answer comes when this support translate into policy—when governments tax away people’s earnings and pay for services that might otherwise be supported privately. The truth is government spending on charitable causes leads people to give less to charity. Not just liberals, but everyone everyone gives less privately when the government gives more. Brooks believes the most likely reason for this is because people tend to see government aid and private charity as substitutes. Economists, notes Brooks, have a name for this phenomenon: the “public goods crowding out effect,” which he states is a potent theory for opponents of “big government” because it suggests that taxing and spending may have less net impact on citizens’ welfare than imagined. Numerous studies have demonstrated that a dollar in government spending on nonprofit activities displaces up to 50 cents in private giving. The highest level of crowding out occurs in assistance to the poor and other kinds of social welfare services, and indication that government social spending for the needy benefits recipients far less than its face value. For a charity that is reliant on both public funding and private giving, this means that nothing is “free” about government support, as it not only lessens the effect of fund-raising efforts, but also makes an organization more dependent on the government.
“Crowding out,” notes Brooks, only explains lower personal giving if the government is taxing citizens and redistributing the income to people and organizations in need. Yet if increased government spending is only an idea or a political position, should it have no affect on giving behavior? In other words, I might stop giving if the government actually picks up support for my favorite charity, but would I stop just because I think the the government should do so? The evidence is that actions are based on beliefs, and not actual policies. It matters little whether the government is actually redistributing income and lessening inequality—what appears to displace charity is a person’s support for these policies. People who think the government should redistribute income more are less likely to donate to charity than people who don’t think so. Brooks argues this is nothing more than substituting political opinions for private donations. The opinions may or may not be sound, but the giving is conspicuously absent. Politically, this is a left-right issue—because income redistribution is a left-right issue in America. Although 77 percent of self-proclaimed liberals say the government should redistribute income more than at present, only 24 percent of conservatives say this. So Brooks further argues that substituting a political belief for personal sacrifice shows a lack of tangible personal responsibility toward others in need and represents a “deeply troubling relationship” between ideology and personal action on the political left.
So what is placing America’s far left so far outside the charitable mainstream and exempting so many of them from a sense of personal charitable responsibility? According to Brooks, the American hard left has developed a resistance to charity, as they believe the existence of charity is evidence of an unjust society, and should thus be made obsolete by government redistribution. The thinking is that in an ideal world, there is no charity because there is no need for it. Clearly, this is an unrealistic worldview, states Brooks, because our needs are constantly changing, and above basic subsistence levels, the perception of “need” has mostly to do with what an individual sees others as having. And history has not been kind to this worldview. Collectivist systems have been tried, most notably in Central and Eastern Europe, and they have failed. The governments of the Communist bloc ran inefficient systems that ultimately collapsed under their own bureaucratic weight. In some circles, particularly in American academia, a strong philosophy abhors charity as just another tool of power. Usually, according to Brooks, this philosophy stems from the core tenets of Marxism, which teaches: “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” The basic Marxist argument about charity is that the rich give charitably because they can, but their actions are inherently corrupt because their control over the resources they enjoy is illegitimate. The problem with this position is the assumption that givers are always rich, and recipients are always poor. It is a common assumption, but it is wrong.
Income inequality, argues Brooks, is a core liberal issue and this is the link between redistribution and charity. This is not to say that no one on the right cares about economic inequality, but it is is the issue that most strongly separates liberals and conservatives today. These differences on whether income inequality is a problem lead to differences in what to do about it, and whether to forcibly redistribute income or not is what represents the wedge between liberal and conservative giving. Those who see inequality in America as a major problem, which is more of an issue for upper-income liberals than lower-income people of all political persuasions, usually want to solve it through government action. In the next blog, we will continue discussing just why liberals worry so much about income inequality.
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