Who Really Cares

By Thomas C. Reeves

Arthur C. Brooks, professor of public administration at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, is an expert on the economics of charity. His scholarship is based on social science rather than ideology. All the more shocking to read his book Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism (Basic Books, 2006), for Brooks’ research led him to conclusions he did not expect to reach. We have all been assured since kindergarten that the Left is more compassionate and self-giving than the Right; one side of the political spectrum is “progressive” and the other is selfish; leftists want to help the poor while right-wingers are oblivious to suffering; religious people are hypocrites and secular Americans are selfless and sincere. Blue state good, red state bad. The clichés about the political and religious foundations of charity, Brooks points out, with wide-ranging and thoroughly analyzed evidence, are completely wrong. And so are many widely accepted generalities about the impact of religion and secularism on prosperity, success, and happiness.

On the whole, Brooks points out, Americans are a very generous people, far more so than almost any other people in the world. “All together, private charitable donations in the United States add up to about a quarter trillion dollars per year. Three quarters of this amount comes from private individuals (as opposed to foundations, corporations, and bequests.)” Between 1955 and 2004, real private giving to all causes increased five-fold. Within the first six months after the tsunami disaster of 2004, Americans donated more than $1.5 billion in cash and gifts. Americans give time as well as money; more than half of our families volunteer their time each year, about 40 percent of which go to religious causes, followed by 30 percent for youth-related activities.

Donors tend to be more sympathetic and tolerant than non-givers, and they are happier and more prosperous. Those who are charitable strongly tend to be religious, married, family-oriented, hardworking, and conservative, both politically and economically. People in the red states are in fact more charitable than those in the blue states.

The tendency on the Left, here and in Europe, is to let government handle charity; a passion for the redistribution of wealth to alleviate poverty and promote social equality often negates any personal demand to be charitable. Spending other people’s money is a convenient way to escape personal sacrifice. Those who are the most selfish personally, in time and money, tend to be secular leftists (often of high income), although there is a small secular Right that is equally unwilling to donate.

Brooks discovered that the serious practice of a religious faith is the strongest single factor in giving. Ted Kennedy’s Massachusetts, which has relatively few churches per thousand residents (48th in the nation) has the lowest level of charitable giving in the country. “In years of research,” writes Brooks, “I have never found measurable way in which secularists are more charitable than religious people.” Religious people are even more likely to donate blood, return change mistakenly given them by a cashier, and give money to family and friends than secularists. They also give more to secular charities.

But aren’t Christians just trying to buy their way into heaven? And aren’t right-wingers generous because of the tax deductions? And aren’t the rich merely trying to assuage their guilt and purchase fame and glory by giving to others? Brooks tackles each of these contentions with a devastating barrage of data and careful thought, leaving little to support such claims. Here are two samples of the author’s often startling conclusions: “Indeed, all the available data tell us that poor people contribute more of their household incomes than rich people do,” and “. . . low-income Americans are less disturbed by income inequality than are rich liberals.”

Brooks is critical of welfare, big government, childless families, and the far Left because of their negative impact on charity, which the author believes is tied directly to the best things in life. I found his contrast between the happiness levels of people living in Europe and the United States especially revealing: polls show people in the supposedly worry-free joy of the welfare state far less happy than average Americans. They lack the religious faith, hope, wealth, and generosity that we enjoy. Brooks declares, “History has yet to vindicate the view that a society can prosper without private charity.”

I was fascinated too by the sheer numbers of people in different categories, based on the census of 2000. Religious conservatives make up 19.1% of the American population—more than 50 million people. (This consists of 24% of all Protestants and 19% of Catholics.) Secular liberals are 10.5% of the population—nearly 30 million Americans. Which of the two groups is, by far, the most generous? And which group is overly represented in college faculties and in the media? I’ll bet you can guess.