New York Times Mag- on Giving
I find it hopeful that What Should a Billionaire Give - and What Should You?was the cover article of the New York Times Magazine (December 17, 2006). just some more food for thought/discussion on philanthropy and the individual
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I am so pleased with the intense converage philanthropy has been getting since Gates & Buffet's mega gifts. John Stossel did a special on philanthropy a few weeks ago on ABC -- I bet you could find it on Youtube. It was excellent.
While I agree with this authors contention that the world would be better if the rich gave more, I think his reasoning is very inneffective. I think he could have made his case more persuasive with a different approach.
The reasons I think are most compelling to give a larger sum of income than most do are (1) Additional material comforts and goods do not make American middle-class people happier despite the ever present belief that they will and (2) taking responsibility for helping to solve a larger problem(s) beyond our own family and friends does make people happier.
People love mattering. (neurological fact, not philosophical point) We are built to experience pleasure when we matter. Just watch a baby knock over a stack of blocks. Humans love the power to re-do their living room. Wouldn't they feel even more powerful if they also re-did the world?
Giving is an exercise in abundance. The same impulse that makes people feel good when they buy the most expensive champaign or put $500 down on a roulette wheel knowing their chances of winning are very slim is the same impulse that can be satified by making a large check to charity. I hypothesize that the act of buying that champaign or putting that $500 on the roulette wheel is thrilling because it allows people to feel they are so wealthy that they can just blow money. The down side of this type of spending is that it only feels good for the moment and it doesn't do any good for the world. Why not get those kinds of impulses out on something that delivers something valuable to the world and has the added benefit of us feeling good about it in the morning?
When people aren't spending with abandon for the thrill of that abandon, they suffer from an equally charity-reducing maladjustment. Our psyches, societal pressures and advertising fool all of us in to thinking our cup is not overflowing. Ask the average person who makes $60,000 if they think they are rich. Then ask the average person who makes $150,000 a year if they think they are rich. I bet the same percentage say no and I bet that percentage would be near 90%. Yet, by any worlwide or historical standard someone who makes even $40,000 a year is wealthy by practically any standard other than the unique view seen by looking at those in our immediate vicinity. Everybody wants to win the lottery. Well if you make $40,000 a year you won! Let's break out the expensive bubbly! Why not celebrate? Because we all suffer from this miserception driven by our insatiable natural appetite for more. I think most people would agree that they, too suffer from this.
The antidote to this chronic misperception caused by the human condition is a regimen of giving. Giving makes people feel rich and thankful for having so much that they can share some of it with the world without reducing their standrd of living.
If you were to do a poll of AMericans and ask them if they agreed with the following syllogism I bet over 95% would say yes. "Generosity breeds happiness and stinginess breeds the opposite." If that is so obvious, why don't more people take their own advice?
The opposite of abundance is scarcity. If we can put food on our tables, a roof over our heads, and we can travel where we want then the decision to view our lives as scarce or abundant is our choosing.
While more money won't make you or I happier it will make someone who is starving happier. If tens of thousands of people are sitting in prison whom you don't think deserve to be there, spending money to help change those laws will make them happier.
We are not going to sell philanthropy simply by explaining the magnitude of the need and the capacity that exists in people's wallets to fill it. That's easy. We must show people why it is in their best interest to give.
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might you consider joining the tenpercentclub on omidyar.netas well?
I'm trying to do a mirror site and get more people involved in the discussions....would love you to post this on the related thread there as well...'Thoughts on 'At Least' 10%'
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