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THE NONCONTRIBUTOR TO CHARITY

We are beset by the view that it is blessed to give to charity. That it is also virtuous, seemly, good, fair, respectable, altruistic, and endearing. In like manner, the refusal to give to charity is met with contempt, derision, incredulity, and horror. The person who refuses to contribute to charity is considered a pariah.

This sociological imperative is supported by legions of beggars, fundraisers, clerics, and other “needy” groups. We are exhorted from the pulpit and the media, by the Hare Krishnas and the panhandlers, the flower people and the March of Dimes children, the cripples, the helpless, the impoverished, and the beaten down.

Contributing to charity is not in itself evil. When it is a voluntary decision on the part of responsible adults, it does not violate an individual’s rights. Yet there are dangers in charity, and compelling reasons for refusing to contribute to it. In addition, there are serious flaws in the moral philosophy upon which charity is based.

THE EVILS OF CHARITY

One of the great evils of charity, and one of the most cogent reasons for refusing to contribute to it, is that it interferes with the survival of the human species. According to the Darwinian principle of the “survival of the fittest,” those organisms most able to exist in a given environment will be “naturally selected” (by showing a greater propensity to live until the age of procreation, and thus be more likely to leave offspring). One result, in the long run, is a species whose members have a greater ability to survive. This does not imply that the strong “kill off” the weak, as has been alleged. It merely suggests that the strong will be more successful than the weak in the procreation of the species. Thus the ablest perpetuate themselves and the species thrives.

Some contend that the law of natural selection does not apply to modern civilization. Critics point to artificial kidney machines, open heart surgery, and other scientific and medical breakthroughs, and argue that Darwin’s survival law has been preempted by modern science. For people with diseases and genetic drawbacks, which in the past led to an early death, today live on to reproduce.

This does not, however, demonstrate that the Darwinian law is inapplicable. Modern scientific breakthroughs have not “repealed” Darwin’s law, they have only changed the specific cases to which it applies.

In the past, the characteristic antithetical to human survival might have been a defective heart or poor kidneys. But with the advent of modern medical advances, medical failures are likely to become less and less important as grounds for natural selection. What will become more and more important is the ability to live on a crowded planet. Characteristics opposed to survival may include an allergy to smoke, excessive argumentativeness, or bellicosity. Such characteristics will tend to lessen a person’s ability to survive to adulthood. These characteristics lessen the person’s chances of maintaining a situation (marriage, employment) in which reproduction is possible. Thus, if the Darwinian laws are allowed to work themselves out, such negative traits will tend to disappear. But if charity is extended, these harmful traits will be carried over to the next generation.

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“Go inherit your own money!”

While charity of this type is undeniably harmful, when it is private, it is limited in scope by a type of Darwinian law that applies to the givers: they come to bear some of the harm they cause. Thus they are led, as if by Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” to cut back on their giving. For example, if parental charity takes the form of “sparing the rod and spoiling the child,” some of the harmful effects of this charity rebound upon the parents. Being on the receiving end of spoiled children tends to temper the giver. (Many of the parents who supported their adult “hippie” children throughout the sixties discontinued such support when they themselves suffered from its harmful effects.) Private charity also has a built-in limitation because any given private fortune is circumscribed. The case of public charity is ominously different.

In public charity, all natural barriers are virtually absent. It is a rare case indeed when public charity is reduced because of its harmful effects. The fortune at the goverment’s disposal is only limited by its desire for taxes and its ability to levy them on an unwilling public.

A case in point is the American foreign aid program of the 1950s and 1960s. The government of the United States paid American farmers more than the market price for their produce, thus creating gigantic surpluses, for which still more money had to be allotted. Large quantities of this produce were then sent to countries such as India, where the domestic farm industry was virtually ruined by this subsidized importation.

Other detrimental effects of governmental “charity” have been documented by a number of social scientists. G. William Domhoff in his book The Higher Circles,1 shows that “charitable” institutions such as workmen’s compensation, collective bargaining in labor, unemployment insurance, and welfare programs were begun not by advocates of the poor, as is universally accepted, but by the rich. These programs promote their own class interests. The aim of this state-corporate charity system is not to redistribute wealth from rich to poor, but to buy up the potential leaders of the poor and tie them to the hegemony of the ruling class, while maintaining an intellectual class determined to convince an unwary public that government charity actually benefits them.

In like manner, Piven and Cloward point out in Regulating the Poor2 that the “charitable” institution of welfare serves not mainly to aid the poor, but rather to suppress them. The modus operandi here is to allow the welfare rolls to increase not in times of great need, but in times of social upheaval, and to decrease the welfare rolls not in times of plenty, but in times of social tranquility. Thus the welfare system is a kind of “bread and circus” method of controlling the masses.

THE PHILOSOPHY BEHIND CHARITY

Despite these problems, there are those who view charity as a blessed state, and consider contributions a moral obligation. Such people would make charity compulsory, if they could. If, however, an act is made compulsory, it is not charity, for charity is defined as voluntary giving. If an individual is forced to give, he is not a contributor to charity, he is the victim of a robbery.

The crux of charity, for those who would wish it to be made compulsory, the laws of logic and linguistics notwithstanding, is that there is a duty, an obligation, a moral imperative, for all to give to the less fortunate. This rests on the premise that “we are each our brother’s keepers.”

This philosophy, however, contradicts a basic premise of morality—namely, that it should always be at least possible for a person to do what is moral. If there are two people in different geographical areas who are in dire need of John’s aid at the same time, it would be impossible for John to help both of them. If John cannot help both needy people, and since helping both is a requirement of the brother’s keeper morality, then clearly, with the best intentions, John cannot be moral. And if, according to any given theory of ethics, a well-intentioned person cannot be moral, the theory is incorrect.

The second basic flaw in the brother’s keeper moral view is that it logically calls for absolute income equality, whether or not its proponents realize this. Remember, this morality preaches that it is the moral duty of those who have more, to share with those who have less. Adam, who has $100, shares with Richard, who has only $5, by giving Richard $10. Adam now has $90 and Richard $15. One might think that Adam has followed the dictates of the sharing philosophy. However, this philosophy states that it is the duty of all people to share with the less fortunate, and Adam still has more than Richard. If Adam wishes to act morally, according to the brother’s keeper moral view, he will have to share again with Richard. The sharing can end only when Richard no longer has less than Adam.

The doctrine of absolute income equality, a necessary consequence of the brother’s keeper philosophy, will admit of no prosperity for anyone over and above the meager pittance the most helpless individual is able to amass. Thus the brother’s keeper philosophy is in direct and irreconcilable opposition to the natural ambition to improve one’s lot. Believers in it are torn by ultimately conflicting views and the result, naturally enough, is hypocrisy. How else can one describe people who claim to be practitioners of the brother’s keeper philosophy, and yet have well-stocked pantries, a television, a stereo set, a car, jewelry, and real estate, while in many parts of the world people face starvation? They dogmatically affirm their commitment to equality, yet deny that their lush wealth is in any way contradictory to this commitment.

One explanation offered is that a certain amount of wealth and well-being is necessary for them to maintain their jobs, which allows them to earn the money to contribute to the less fortunate. Clearly, it is true that the brother’s keeper must maintain his own ability to “keep” his brothers. His demise due to starvation is not called for by the brother’s keeper philosophy.

The wealthy brother’s keeper thus explains himself as being in a position similar to the slave owned by the “rational” slave owner. For the slave must be at least minimally healthy and comfortable, even contented, if he or she is to produce for the owner. The wealthy brother’s keeper has, in effect, enslaved himself for the benefit of the downtrodden whom he aids. He has amassed the amount which he needs in order to best serve his fellow man. His wealth and standard of living are just what a rational profit-maximizing slave owner would allow his slave to enjoy. Everything in his possession is enjoyed only to the extent, and for the sole purpose of, increasing and/or maintaining his economic ability to help those who are less fortunate than he is, according to this argument.

It might be barely possible that a brother’s keeper living in a garret could be telling the truth when he explains his possessions in these terms. But what of the average person who claims to practice the brother’s keeper morality—the civil servant earning $17,000 a year, and living in a cooperative apartment in New York City? It can hardly be seriously contended that the possessions he has collected are necessary for his productivity—especially when these holdings could be sold for money which could significantly aid the downtrodden.

Far from being a blessed activity, contributing to charity can have harmful effects. In addition, the moral theory upon which charity rests is riddled with contradictions and makes hypocrites of those who are pressured by it.

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1G. William Domhoff, The Higher Circles (New York: Random House, 1970.)

2Frances F. Piven and Richard A. Cloward, Regulating the Poor (New York: Random House, 1971).