From the WSJ Opinion Archives
REVIEW & OUTLOOK
The Gifts of the Season
Americans give to get things done, not to assuage their guilt.
It's the season for giving--and that is more than a Salvation Army cliché. As Christmas approaches, Americans routinely reach deeper into their pockets for charity; according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, about a third of total giving in 2005 came in the last three months.
And for every philanthropic dollar, there is someone with an opinion about where it should go. We don't mind when the person with the opinion is ringing a bell outside the supermarket, standing in the cold and appealing to our goodwill. But when he has an appointment at an Ivy League university and makes larger moral claims, it pays to be wary.
This year's version of that moral instruction comes from Princeton Professor Peter Singer, who is most famous for his endorsement of certain kinds of infanticide. His theme for the 2006 holidays is "What Should a Billionaire Give--And What Should You?," a long essay in the New York Times Magazine arguing for a grand global transfer of wealth.
Like Columbia's Jeffrey Sachs and other famous liberals, Mr. Singer believes that the problem with the world's poor is a matter of financial arithmetic. If only each of us in the West would tithe to the Earth's poorer regions, all would be well, or at least much better than it is. The United Nations has posted Millennium Goals along similar lines. According to Mr. Sachs, a mere transfer of $189 billion by 2015 should do the trick.
It's a happy illusion that has the misfortune of ignoring the problems of human nature and dignity. As Adam Meyerson of the Philanthropy Roundtable notes, more important than check-writing are the "institutions that help people come out of poverty." The only real solution isn't a new global dole but giving the poor the means to create wealth for themselves. Unless we can bring "the rule of law and accountable government" to the Third World, Mr. Meyerson argues, there is no reason to believe that giving money will matter. Arthur Brooks, the author of "Who Really Cares," a new book about Americans' giving habits, agrees: "In a modern economy, the primary resource of value is not cash but ideas."
Moreover, to offer mere handouts, however well-intentioned, is to discount the innate capacity of those on the receiving end and, ultimately, to devalue their worth. Mr. Brooks worries that folks like Mr. Singer "miss the whole 'teach a man to fish' thing." Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, as the saying goes; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Or as the medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides wrote: The best way to fulfill God's commandment is to "strengthen the hand of the poor," by employing someone in need.
There are centuries of literature on the moral way to practice philanthropy, but too many modern moralists ignore it. Mr. Brooks says their belief is that "charity is merely evidence of a failure of government." And to the extent that charity interests them in itself, they want it to be an admission of guilt, as if Westerners are obliged to assuage their consciences by helping orphans in Africa. But charity need not be so narcissistic. The basic human impulse to do good may properly lead many to help those in need, especially those nearby.
Timothy Ogden, an officer at Geneva Global, a consulting firm that advises wealthy donors about how to spend their charitable dollars most effectively, says that the best giving "doesn't come from guilt, but from honest desire." Mr. Ogden observes that many clients come to him suffering "not from donor fatigue, but from donor futility. It's not that they are tired of giving. They're tired of giving and not accomplishing anything."
In 2005, Americans gave $62 billion in private assistance to developing countries. That's not enough for Mr. Singer, but it is more than any other country in the world. Mr. Ogden feels certain that if Americans saw their money being put to better use, they would give even more. The spirits of Christmas and of American pragmatism aren't so far apart.
