Christmas is coming...
UPDATE: I'm curious about the dead string of comments on this topic. Do Boalt students not give to charities? Or is it tacky to discuss charitable giving, even behind the internet's anonymity? Or would people be more interested in this becoming a formal survey on Survey Monkey?
If it helps to start the debate, my personal view is that I do not donate from the money I borrow for school. On the other hand, I have tried to tithe out of the money I make working. I know this doesn't make perfect sense -- if I'm concerned with not borrowing too much money, I should use the money I make to borrow less. That aside, this is the compromise I've arrived at. I'm curious if other people have reached this economically ridiculous conclusion, or if people are taking advantage of subsidized borrowing to donate more, or if law school debt is a good justification for deferring charity.
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... and with it, discussion of charity is heating up. Arthur Brooks' new book "Who Really Cares: America's Charity Divide; Who Gives, Who Doesn't, and Why It Matters" is making waves over at Volokh. With such provactive and season-appropriate material, we may even get a national dialogue. The CliffNotes version of the book, which I lift from Jim Lindgren is:
(Ch. 1) Conservatives give more money to charities than liberals.
(Ch. 2) Religion is involved, even accounting for more giving to secular institutions.
(Ch. 3) Redistributionists are less generous personally than anti-redistributionists.
(Ch. 4) Government intervention (including welfare) suppresses giving.
(Ch. 5) Families with children are more generous and that patterns of giving are taught to children.
(Ch. 6) Generally, Americans are more generous than people in other countries, in donating both money and time.
(Ch.7) Charity has great benefits for the giver (or as the chapter is extravagantly titled: “Charity Makes You Healthy, Happy, and Rich”).
(Ch.8) Charity can be encouraged, and should be encouraged, by better laws, policies, and practices.
(Appendix)The book ends with a 24 page appendix summarizing the main databases used and providing tables showing some of Brooks’ regression and probit analyses.
I'm personally curious how charity manifests in the Boalt community. We spend a lot of time discussing how (and whether) Boalt raises money. What about other charities? How do you reconcile student debt with charitable giving or tithing? What charities have come to your attention as worthwhile?
And feel free to comment anonymously - my usual scorn for anonymous commenting is wholly inappropriate here, and this is a dialogue perhaps best accomplished behind the internet's veils.
If it helps to start the debate, my personal view is that I do not donate from the money I borrow for school. On the other hand, I have tried to tithe out of the money I make working. I know this doesn't make perfect sense -- if I'm concerned with not borrowing too much money, I should use the money I make to borrow less. That aside, this is the compromise I've arrived at. I'm curious if other people have reached this economically ridiculous conclusion, or if people are taking advantage of subsidized borrowing to donate more, or if law school debt is a good justification for deferring charity.
--
... and with it, discussion of charity is heating up. Arthur Brooks' new book "Who Really Cares: America's Charity Divide; Who Gives, Who Doesn't, and Why It Matters" is making waves over at Volokh. With such provactive and season-appropriate material, we may even get a national dialogue. The CliffNotes version of the book, which I lift from Jim Lindgren is:
(Ch. 1) Conservatives give more money to charities than liberals.
(Ch. 2) Religion is involved, even accounting for more giving to secular institutions.
(Ch. 3) Redistributionists are less generous personally than anti-redistributionists.
(Ch. 4) Government intervention (including welfare) suppresses giving.
(Ch. 5) Families with children are more generous and that patterns of giving are taught to children.
(Ch. 6) Generally, Americans are more generous than people in other countries, in donating both money and time.
(Ch.7) Charity has great benefits for the giver (or as the chapter is extravagantly titled: “Charity Makes You Healthy, Happy, and Rich”).
(Ch.8) Charity can be encouraged, and should be encouraged, by better laws, policies, and practices.
(Appendix)The book ends with a 24 page appendix summarizing the main databases used and providing tables showing some of Brooks’ regression and probit analyses.
I'm personally curious how charity manifests in the Boalt community. We spend a lot of time discussing how (and whether) Boalt raises money. What about other charities? How do you reconcile student debt with charitable giving or tithing? What charities have come to your attention as worthwhile?
And feel free to comment anonymously - my usual scorn for anonymous commenting is wholly inappropriate here, and this is a dialogue perhaps best accomplished behind the internet's veils.
posted by Tom Fletcher at 8:22 AM
9 Comments:
Max--the discussion at Volokh addresses many of those issues. Take a look.
Yep it does, in fact, while liberals make more money than conservatives, they give less to charity. This is in real terms also, not relative. The difference is actually pretty remarkable.
The one thing I believe they fail to account for is that more liberals live in higher tax rate states, and so would pay higher taxes and have less desire to be charitable. I know I would donate less money in CA than in UT, for example. I'm not saying it would eliminate the statistical difference, but it may be a mitigating factor.
3:13, but that doesn't solve the problem. The study finds that people who are pro-redistribution of wealth are less likely to be charitable. Well, if you are pro-redistribution of wealth, you are also likely to vote for higher taxes. All you would do is turn it into a chicken and the egg situation.
what about charitable deductions, 3:13? an individual paying a higher tax rate (i.e. in CA) has more of an incentive to give, and thus lower his tax liability, then does an individual in a lower tax bracket in TX.
I've spoken with many a religious conservative on this issue and they all claim (privately of course) that no one knows they give money because they don't tell anyone.
10:25,
That's true, I believe. The proverbial phrase "the left hand doesn't know what the right is doing," is in the Bible and was originally not an insult but a suggestion about giving money to charity without anyone (including your own left hand) know that you're doing so.
I think it's also important to differentiate between charities. I have seen data on giving patterns that show charitable giving coming back to the giver's community (i.e. arts, churches, and schools). So giving is not necessarily charitable or redistributive.
I think it's (perhaps) telling that no one has taken Tom up on his invention to talk about personal giving while in school. Perhaps that just proves the point of the book.
I contined my charitable giving while in law school. I never gave that much to any one organization, but I figured that because I was married and in school I could easily afford to give. The fact that I was paying interest on my giving never really entered into the equation as I never gave more than $150 at a time.
While I'd like to really increase my giving now that I have a BigLaw job, with the prospect of actually making loan payment imminent, I haven't increased my giving level as much as I'd hoped.
I'll take Tom up on it.
I have tithed while in law school. I tithe on income (mine and spouse's) but not on borrowed money. Loans aren't income--they are consumption. But I will tithe on the income used to pay off the loans when the time comes, so it all comes out the same in the end.
Since it seems relevant to the conversation, I'll state that I'm one of the (closeted) Boalt conservatives.
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