Politics of charity

Who Really Cares: America's Charity Divide--Who Gives, Who Doesn't, and Why It Matters. By Arthur C. Brooks. Basic Books, 256 pp., $26.00.

THIS IS A provocative book on charitable giving in the United States and a variety of other countries. Approximately 75 percent of U.S. households make charitable contributions each year. They give away 3.5 percent of their $51,500 average annual income, with one-third of the giving going to religious causes. But there is much hidden behind these averages.

Arthur Brooks's findings, some of which are counterintuitive, are based on extensive statistics. Brooks, professor of public administration at Syracuse University, is surprised by the findings and appears to have altered his political perspective from liberal to conservative as a result of his explorations. There is much to be gleaned from this book, but some cautions are in order.

His thesis is that acts of charity are fostered primarily by conservative political and religious commitments and cultivated within a strong family context, and that such acts result in happiness, good health and more income for the giver. People who are skeptical about the government redistributing income also tend to give more. In contrast, the people who give and volunteer the least are more likely to be secular liberals from less stable families who support government redistribution programs. However, Brooks makes it clear that there are many exceptions to these tendencies.

Separate components of this thesis are highlighted in separate chapters. One point is that religious people tend to give a significantly higher proportion of both money and volunteer time. Attendance at a house of worship dwarfs all other variables as a predictor of the percent of time and money given.

The second finding relates to political preferences. The data are clear that those who see the government as an appropriate player in income redistribution are likely to be less charitable than those with more politically conservative ideas. Although politically conservative religious people are much less likely to see disparity in incomes as a problem, they are more likely to give to charitable causes than are nonreligious political liberals.

The next topic concerns the impact of income and wealth on charity. The data here are sliced in many ways, leading to a variety of conclusions. The rich give approximately 3.5 percent of their income, and the poor approximately 4.5 percent. Brooks makes much of the fact that poor people who receive welfare give less than working poor people with similar incomes who are not receiving direct government transfers of income.

The fourth finding is the least surprising. People from intact homes are more charitable than those from broken homes and those who live alone. The modeling effect of loving parents, the effect of family solidarity on happiness, and the fact that religion and family solidarity can be expected to go together all contribute to this finding. Brooks presents less evidence about the relationship between religion and family solidarity than about the relationship between conservative political views and family solidarity, but the data imply that there is a connection among all three.

Brooks's chapter on international comparisons is the least convincing and perhaps the most subjective. His general theme is that Europe is not religious, that it has become increasingly politically liberal and that it has deteriorating family values. All of this, Brooks contends, contributes to the loss of a culture of charity. To make the point that Europeans do not substitute taxation for charity, Brooks argues that Europeans have a lighter tax burden than people in the U.S., but he cites only the income tax. In fact, the value-added tax is the primary source of European revenues, and the European average tax rate is above that of the U.S.

Finally, Brooks argues that charity not only is correlated with good health, happiness and riches, it causes them: social networks, the satisfaction of giving and the benefits of charity used well make life better for us all. There is a distinct tone of Christian paternalism in this final chapter, which Brooks begins by presenting John D. Rockefeller as a model of charity and wealth. He argues that charity brings about wealth and riches rather than the other way around. The evidence for this is tenuous at best.

Brooks says he is not evaluating the relative merits of different types of giving. He notes only the category of the recipient. Giving to orchestras, museums, church building funds and parent-teacher associations is considered just as charitable as giving to aid the poor and disadvantaged. Sorting out motives for and benefits from giving is an impossible task, so readers can only speculate about how these variables might affect Brooks's conclusions. This complication weakens the study considerably and raises questions about the book's theme. Is the focus on caring misplaced given that Brooks simply reports who gives time and tax-deductible money to organizations deemed to be charities? After all, giving and caring are not synonymous.