Rational was a bad word for me to use here. Taboo it.
Also, saying there is “no rational reason” was overstating it.
I’ll say this instead: Pre-humanity, nature had no behavior like this. During some large portion of human history, it has been considered strange to give away a majority of one’s wealth. The Giving Pledge, for example, flies in the face of millions of years of precedent.
In the context of the discussion I was having (and in many such discussions I’ve had) I’ve learned that this...
If you value what another person can do with it more than whatever else you could do with it, it is rational to give it to them.
...does not compute for many people.
At the risk of being too political (And speaking way too generally), this is one of the main differences I observe between American conservatives and liberals: The rational basis for giving doesn’t compute for conservatives.
They seem to want to win by accumulating wealth, and then keep wining, and winning, and winning by accumulating more wealth. Suggesting to them that “If you value what another person can do with it more than whatever else you could do with it, it is rational to give it to them.” tends to make them look at you sideways.
The basis by which conservatives tend to reject “radical charity” is pretty sound, I think. From what I can gather, it is something like, “(1) It was nature’s way (or God’s providence) and my hard work that caused my wealth, (2) I have a right to use it to further my ends and provide for as many future generations of my family as possible & (3) unnatural (non-capitalistic) economic moves never work anyway...therefore, giving away my money is bad and not rational.”
During some large portion of human history, it has been considered strange to give away a majority of one’s wealth.
Customs relating to this vary quite a bit. In cultures with a strong potlatch tradition, for example, gift-giving is the primary way of displaying status and it’s not at all unusual to give away most of one’s wealth.
I’m not ready to make sweeping declarations about what has been normal for most of human history, or at least for the portion of it where talking about wealth would have made any sense.
I’ve no doubt there are exceptions, but, when posed with the following question, how do you think the majority of humans who have ever walked the Earth would reply?:
Which word best describes your feelings about the act of giving away >50% of your possessions to benefit absolute strangers?
A. Normal
B. Abnormal
Further, “wealth” has always had some meaning, even before humans. If we define wealth as “stuff we need or want”, then the animal kingdom is full of this sort of wealth, and they tend to defend their wealth as a means to provide for themselves and their young with vigor.
It is perfectly natural to hoard wealth for yourself and your kin. It was point that movements like The Giving Pledge, or say, very large, anonymous charitable gifts seem to be anti-natural in this way.
I’m aware that what appears to be pure altruism may only be signalling, or some other mechanism for personal gain… But I do believe there is (possibly) something like rational altruism taking place where people are realizing that (1) every dollar past X million/billion is essentially worthless ’cuz you’re gonna die and you can’t use it all, (2) immense amounts of inherited wealth aren’t as 100% positive as you might think so leaving gobs of money to family is not optimal & (3) other people’s lives suck because they have no money or food and no way to get money or food.
There is also a group of people for whom this seems to make no sense. They see every red cent as having utility since they can find ways to pass it on (in some form) to their family.
when posed with the following question, how do you think the majority of humans who have ever walked the Earth would reply?:
As I just said, I’m not willing to make that generalization; we don’t have enough good data about prehistoric culture, or for that matter many historical cultures, to talk about it this specifically. A cladistic analysis of gift-giving behavior might be more tractable, but I don’t have the data for that either.
(Granted, given the shape of the population curve, it might be—though I don’t remember, and haven’t looked it up—that the majority of humans ever to walk the earth lived in historical times. But I’m guessing that’s not what you’re getting at.)
Further, “wealth” has always had some meaning, even before humans. If we define wealth as “stuff we need or want”, then the animal kingdom is full of this sort of wealth, and they tend to defend their wealth as a means to provide for themselves and their young with vigor.
I’m using “wealth” to indicate the kind of goods that can be usefully hoarded, which IIRC are primarily discussed as a post-Neolithic phenomenon. I’m not anthopologist enough to speak authoritatively on how things might have worked in the Paleolithic, but it should be clear that there are physical limits on how much you can hoard if you’re leading a nomadic forager lifestyle, particularly without pack animals. I’d also expect people’s cultural reasoning about generosity to differ under this sort of regime.
I’m no anthropologist, but giving away the majority of one’s wealth isn’t the norm. If not self-evident, I’m not sure what else about human behavior is. You need resources to live, and the desire to live is a pretty hard wired drive inside any species that made it this far.
Customs relating to this vary quite a bit. In cultures with a strong potlatch tradition, for example, gift-giving is the primary way of displaying status and it’s not at all unusual to give away most of one’s wealth.
Incidentally, I’ve heard a reasonable argument that the so-called “gift-giving” cultures are largely an artifact caused by (mis)translating their languages words for different types of economic exchanges as “gift”. This mistranslation was started by early settlers who didn’t want to admit they were paying tribute to the natives. Later it was continued by anthropologists who believed or at least alieved the whole “noble savage” myth.
I’m not sure I’d go so far as to call it an economic exchange in the same sense that we’d use for the phrase, but a prestige system denominated in (essentially randomly allocated) gifts doesn’t seem all that much more or less noble to me than one denominated in dollars.
this is one of the main differences I observe between American conservatives and liberals: The rational basis for giving doesn’t compute for conservatives.
I vaguely remember that empirical studies show that conservatives give to charity noticeably more than liberals in the US.
In any case, one main factor that bolsters conservative charitable giving is religion. In many of these instances, I think the term “charitable” is being stretched quite a bit, since many churches do little with that donated money apart from teaching their members their particular brand of religious beliefs. (Also, if beside the point, many Christians I know give with the expectation they will re-acquire those funds in the form of special pleasures and blessings once the reach heaven. So, win-win. Nothing wrong with that...)
The other factor would be that liberals philsophically view the government as a means of redistrbuting resources to the places it is needed. They vote for policies that mandate “charitable” giving, and then trust the system to do what it is inteneded to do. They support higher taxes (generally) and then pay them.
My point (sincerely) wasn’t to disparage conservatives, per se. I’ve just noticed in discussions with my friends, who are politically inclined as such, that they seem to have a very different utility function than my liberal friends in regard to charitable giving, and fiscal policy writ large. They both want good policies that work, but they disagree on what “good” and “work” mean.
Not really differently. This piece picks a favorable definition of “conservative” to avoid the result they don’t like. And even then conservatives and liberals come out even—hardly support for your hypothesis that conservatives just don’t grok giving.
In many of these instances, I think the term “charitable” is being stretched quite a bit
That’s irrelevant because what’s under discussion is propensity of people to give away their wealth. In this context it doesn’t matter whether the money is used effectively.
they seem to have a very different utility function than my liberal friends
Well, any reason to be surprised? Political disagreements are real and correlate with a whole bunch of other preferences.
That’s irrelevant because what’s under discussion is propensity of people to give away their wealth. In this context it doesn’t matter whether the money is used effectively.
Hm. I’m not necessarily talking about if the money is being used “effectively”. Rather, the money given to the church is used for the good of the church and those who attend the church (i.e. the giver included). It is quite effective to that end.
I suppose all charities are like this in some way—they benefit humanity, a group to which we all belong. But in the church, a very small amount of total revenue does anything for people outside the church. If it is a charity (which I’m not sure it is), then it is one that quite directly benefits the giver.
If this money is all counted as “charity”, it’s very easy to see how conservatives might out-give liberals. In fact, it’s what I’d expect to see in a country that is so religious.
Well, any reason to be surprised? Political disagreements are real and correlate with a whole bunch of other preferences.
Not surprised, no. But it’s a more helpful way of viewing things than simply concluding liberals are generous with money and conservatives are selfish with it. There is more to it than that, as you point out.
Rational was a bad word for me to use here. Taboo it.
Also, saying there is “no rational reason” was overstating it.
I’ll say this instead: Pre-humanity, nature had no behavior like this. During some large portion of human history, it has been considered strange to give away a majority of one’s wealth. The Giving Pledge, for example, flies in the face of millions of years of precedent.
In the context of the discussion I was having (and in many such discussions I’ve had) I’ve learned that this...
...does not compute for many people.
At the risk of being too political (And speaking way too generally), this is one of the main differences I observe between American conservatives and liberals: The rational basis for giving doesn’t compute for conservatives.
They seem to want to win by accumulating wealth, and then keep wining, and winning, and winning by accumulating more wealth. Suggesting to them that “If you value what another person can do with it more than whatever else you could do with it, it is rational to give it to them.” tends to make them look at you sideways.
The basis by which conservatives tend to reject “radical charity” is pretty sound, I think. From what I can gather, it is something like, “(1) It was nature’s way (or God’s providence) and my hard work that caused my wealth, (2) I have a right to use it to further my ends and provide for as many future generations of my family as possible & (3) unnatural (non-capitalistic) economic moves never work anyway...therefore, giving away my money is bad and not rational.”
Huge fan.
Customs relating to this vary quite a bit. In cultures with a strong potlatch tradition, for example, gift-giving is the primary way of displaying status and it’s not at all unusual to give away most of one’s wealth.
I’m not ready to make sweeping declarations about what has been normal for most of human history, or at least for the portion of it where talking about wealth would have made any sense.
I’ve no doubt there are exceptions, but, when posed with the following question, how do you think the majority of humans who have ever walked the Earth would reply?:
Which word best describes your feelings about the act of giving away >50% of your possessions to benefit absolute strangers?
A. Normal B. Abnormal
Further, “wealth” has always had some meaning, even before humans. If we define wealth as “stuff we need or want”, then the animal kingdom is full of this sort of wealth, and they tend to defend their wealth as a means to provide for themselves and their young with vigor.
It is perfectly natural to hoard wealth for yourself and your kin. It was point that movements like The Giving Pledge, or say, very large, anonymous charitable gifts seem to be anti-natural in this way.
I’m aware that what appears to be pure altruism may only be signalling, or some other mechanism for personal gain… But I do believe there is (possibly) something like rational altruism taking place where people are realizing that (1) every dollar past X million/billion is essentially worthless ’cuz you’re gonna die and you can’t use it all, (2) immense amounts of inherited wealth aren’t as 100% positive as you might think so leaving gobs of money to family is not optimal & (3) other people’s lives suck because they have no money or food and no way to get money or food.
There is also a group of people for whom this seems to make no sense. They see every red cent as having utility since they can find ways to pass it on (in some form) to their family.
As I just said, I’m not willing to make that generalization; we don’t have enough good data about prehistoric culture, or for that matter many historical cultures, to talk about it this specifically. A cladistic analysis of gift-giving behavior might be more tractable, but I don’t have the data for that either.
(Granted, given the shape of the population curve, it might be—though I don’t remember, and haven’t looked it up—that the majority of humans ever to walk the earth lived in historical times. But I’m guessing that’s not what you’re getting at.)
I’m using “wealth” to indicate the kind of goods that can be usefully hoarded, which IIRC are primarily discussed as a post-Neolithic phenomenon. I’m not anthopologist enough to speak authoritatively on how things might have worked in the Paleolithic, but it should be clear that there are physical limits on how much you can hoard if you’re leading a nomadic forager lifestyle, particularly without pack animals. I’d also expect people’s cultural reasoning about generosity to differ under this sort of regime.
I think you are over-thinking it.
I’m no anthropologist, but giving away the majority of one’s wealth isn’t the norm. If not self-evident, I’m not sure what else about human behavior is. You need resources to live, and the desire to live is a pretty hard wired drive inside any species that made it this far.
Incidentally, I’ve heard a reasonable argument that the so-called “gift-giving” cultures are largely an artifact caused by (mis)translating their languages words for different types of economic exchanges as “gift”. This mistranslation was started by early settlers who didn’t want to admit they were paying tribute to the natives. Later it was continued by anthropologists who believed or at least alieved the whole “noble savage” myth.
I’m not sure I’d go so far as to call it an economic exchange in the same sense that we’d use for the phrase, but a prestige system denominated in (essentially randomly allocated) gifts doesn’t seem all that much more or less noble to me than one denominated in dollars.
I vaguely remember that empirical studies show that conservatives give to charity noticeably more than liberals in the US.
I’ve read differently.
In any case, one main factor that bolsters conservative charitable giving is religion. In many of these instances, I think the term “charitable” is being stretched quite a bit, since many churches do little with that donated money apart from teaching their members their particular brand of religious beliefs. (Also, if beside the point, many Christians I know give with the expectation they will re-acquire those funds in the form of special pleasures and blessings once the reach heaven. So, win-win. Nothing wrong with that...)
The other factor would be that liberals philsophically view the government as a means of redistrbuting resources to the places it is needed. They vote for policies that mandate “charitable” giving, and then trust the system to do what it is inteneded to do. They support higher taxes (generally) and then pay them.
My point (sincerely) wasn’t to disparage conservatives, per se. I’ve just noticed in discussions with my friends, who are politically inclined as such, that they seem to have a very different utility function than my liberal friends in regard to charitable giving, and fiscal policy writ large. They both want good policies that work, but they disagree on what “good” and “work” mean.
Not really differently. This piece picks a favorable definition of “conservative” to avoid the result they don’t like. And even then conservatives and liberals come out even—hardly support for your hypothesis that conservatives just don’t grok giving.
That’s irrelevant because what’s under discussion is propensity of people to give away their wealth. In this context it doesn’t matter whether the money is used effectively.
Well, any reason to be surprised? Political disagreements are real and correlate with a whole bunch of other preferences.
Hm. I’m not necessarily talking about if the money is being used “effectively”. Rather, the money given to the church is used for the good of the church and those who attend the church (i.e. the giver included). It is quite effective to that end.
I suppose all charities are like this in some way—they benefit humanity, a group to which we all belong. But in the church, a very small amount of total revenue does anything for people outside the church. If it is a charity (which I’m not sure it is), then it is one that quite directly benefits the giver.
If this money is all counted as “charity”, it’s very easy to see how conservatives might out-give liberals. In fact, it’s what I’d expect to see in a country that is so religious.
Not surprised, no. But it’s a more helpful way of viewing things than simply concluding liberals are generous with money and conservatives are selfish with it. There is more to it than that, as you point out.
Or rather they support higher taxes (on everyone) and then try to evade them.