In the home of the free and the land of the brave, we have people who are without homes, some by choice, but most because "the system" has failed. Systems like family systems, health systems, human service systems, in other words, the social safety net has sprung a huge leak.
I was surprised to learn while watching 20/20 the other night, that charitable giving of time and money is not necessarily a strong suit of liberals. It appears that studies show that poorer persons who are religious tend to give a higher percentage of their earnings than those who are middle-class or higher. According to Arthur C. Brooks a professor at Syracuse University, who has just published "Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism ", "strong families, church attendance, earned income (as opposed to state-subsidized income), and the belief that individuals, not government, offer the best solution to social ills-all of these factors determine how likely one is to give." Brooks as states that "approximately three-quarters of Americans give their time and money to various charities, churches, and causes; the other quarter of the population does not. "
A couple of statistics he provides:
Conservative households in America donate 30% more money to charity each year than liberal households.
If liberals gave blood like conservatives do, the blood supply in the U.S. would jump by about 45%.
If these and other suppositions of Brooks are true, the left as a group, progressives in particular, are engaging in the worst type of pandering, using the plight of the poor to create a base of power. I'm looking forward to reading his book to unravel how he arrives at his conclusions. In the mean time, I am going to evaluate my own behaviors.
This is a good time to take stock of what is really important--people taking care of people.
3 comments:
As an aside, and a largely irrelevant one at that, Buffet's recent gift to the gates foundation was clearly not part of the sample.
On a more relevant note, I think this study is rather unremarkable, and inconsequential. It mistakes the liberal/progressive position as one that labels conservatives "scrooges," which is simplistic and inaccurate. I don't think I've ever heard a liberal tell a conservative that "I'm more generous with my personal wealth than you are." Personal generosity is a virtue, but it is hardly relevant in a discussion of what type of socio-economic distribution of wealth our government should work towards.
In addition, it seems that the article points to poor, christians as being more likly to donate to charity. This segment of the population can only be considered "conservative" in their morals; many are economically progressive in their views, but have voted based on moral issues in the recent past, mostly as a result of the gun, God, and gays strategy of the new-fangled G.O.P, which started to show some cracks in the last election.
Finally, the study appears to only take financial donations into account, and does not consider the amount of time volunteers spend ensuring that the less fortunate are taken care of. This includes liberal political volunteers who fight to ensure that social safety-nets such as social security and medicare exist. It is these social programs, and others that protect jobs, pensions, etc., that are advocated by liberals that make up the social safety net. The reason that the net has "sprung a huge leak" is because conservatives have been fighting to dismantle it, not because liberals aren't generous enough with their personal wealth.
Oh yeah, and in case you were wondering, Arthur Brooks didn't exactly start this project from the perspective of neutrality: he is a regular contributor to the WSJ editorial page and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (whose more popular members include Lynne Cheney, Newt Gingrich, and Richard Perle). This guy is neither a populist nor progressive.
Rexus,
You make several good points. I don't feel educated enough on Brooks to come to a conclusion--yet. I do know that the Pew Charitable Trust has made similar findings based on religiosity as Brooks has.
I agree that government finnagling has more to do with the holes in the social safety net than charitable giving. In particular, if tax-cuts meant that money going back to individuals was "trickling down" to where it was needed, the funnel must be plugged.
I appreciate your considered opinion.
It appears that the data Brooks uses comes from "The Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey" (sccbs) was undertaken in 2000 by researchers at universities throughout the United States and the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research.
Roper is a non-partisan research group.
See the study:
http://www.policyreview.org/oct03/brooks_print.html
According to Brooks:
"Charity differences between religious and secular people persist if we look at the actual amounts of donations and volunteering. Indeed, measures of the dollars given and occasions volunteered per year produce a yawning gap between the groups. The average annual giving among the religious is $2,210, whereas it is $642 among the secular. Similarly, religious people volunteer an average of 12 times per year, while secular people volunteer an average of 5.8 times. To put this into perspective, religious people are 33 percent of the population but make 52 percent of donations and 45 percent of times volunteered. Secular people are 26 percent of the population but contribute 13 percent of the dollars and 17 percent of the times volunteered."
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