Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

newyorker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 265 posts

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#101

Post by blairharper »

croon wrote: post #95
krzysiek wrote: post #78

> In the contemporary world, philanthropy is distinctively American. We give about four hundred and seventy billion dollars a year—more if you count donations of time, physical labor, and material. America’s total is ahead of any other country’s, even as a percentage of G.D.P. Well, this is just not true. Americans give 2.1% of GDP to charity [1] while the whole world gives just under 3% [2]. Also when you take a loo…

What would be more interesting would be comparing it after including welfare/public education/healthcare/poverty rates etc. Best case scenario would be where no charity is needed, am I wrong?

Welfare should rightly fund "survival" and "levelling the playing field" resources, but charity can offer more than that - it can offer quality of life and a sense of community/belonging. It's nice to be around other people who are going through the same things, and people who support you.

So I think charity will always have a role, both financially and socially.

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#102

Post by retcon »

somethoughts wrote: post #87
ohthehugemanate wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you would really enjoy the Nautilus article about Game Theory of anonymous philanthropy: https://nautil.us/larry-david-and-the-game-theory-of-anonymo... The opening call out is pretty great, too. Ever see the Curb Your Enthusiasm episode where Larry's big donation is upstaged by Ted's anonymous donation? Visible philanthropy is not a simple system of rewards. It's much more interesting than that.

I remember that episode! I think it'd still work - you'd just have to tweaked it a bit - could definitely have the list ordered with most patriotic "anonymous" tax contributors listed in order and then reward the first three non-anonymous highest tax contributors with the full 'bio'/backstory in the magazine spread.

When I worked for what was the fastest growing public publisher in London over thirty years ago, salespeople actually shared their tax slips to boast. "Super tax" was the euphemisms for how much was calculated you needed to have deducted from your payroll every time you hit a campaign out the park and increased your tax offices estimate of your annual return. Which we did. Often. See the Guinness records book for the PGA tour guide of'93 which was the apotheosis and the end of that lark. (Almost all advertising it weighed six pounds or something crazy but quite sane compared with the first dollar points paid to direct sales)

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#103

Post by nicoburns »

blairharper wrote: post #101
croon wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be more interesting would be comparing it after including welfare/public education/healthcare/poverty rates etc. Best case scenario would be where no charity is needed, am I wrong?

Welfare should rightly fund "survival" and "levelling the playing field" resources, but charity can offer more than that - it can offer quality of life and a sense of community/belonging. It's nice to be around other people who are going through the same things, and people who support you. So I think charity will always have a role, both financially and socially.

Publicly funded institutions such as libraries and community centres can also offer this. There’s no reason other than political ideology why welfare cannot fund these things too. Which isn’t to say there isn’t a place for charity.

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#104

Post by [deleted] »

krageon wrote: post #74
habosa wrote: post #68

Don’t let all the shenanigans at the top stop you from doing good. It’s clear that the American system of tax preference for philanthropy is easy to abuse, but while it’s there you might as well use it to help people if you can afford to. If your company matches donations, take them up on that. That means for $1 pre-tax (~$0.60 out of your pocket) you can give $2.00 to an organization that could use the money. That’s…

And what organisations, pray tell, actually need the money and would be visible to a normal human being in a country that isn't shattered by war? Most of the large charities have disgustingly paid CEO's and I can't be the only one that gets a sour taste in their mouth when I give an amount of money to them and realise this CEO receives 100k-1m in compensation while actual human beings starve in the streets or freeze…

[deleted]

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#106

Post by krageon »

kortilla wrote: post #75
krageon wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what organisations, pray tell, actually need the money and would be visible to a normal human being in a country that isn't shattered by war? Most of the large charities have disgustingly paid CEO's and I can't be the only one that gets a sour taste in their mouth when I give an amount of money to them and realise this CEO receives 100k-1m in compensation while actual human beings starve in the streets or freeze…

You should rethink this stance. Do you want competent people running the organization or the cheapest possible? A charity that just passes money straight through by sending envelopes full of cash to a war torn country is much worse than one that spends a ton of money on analyzing first what the most effective way to help is.

Your stance that the most competent people are paid the most is the kind of toxic capitalism that got us into this situation. Nobody is helped by this except the egos of the donators and the pockets of whoever is in charge.

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#107

Post by zozbot234 »

nicoburns wrote: post #103
blairharper wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welfare should rightly fund "survival" and "levelling the playing field" resources, but charity can offer more than that - it can offer quality of life and a sense of community/belonging. It's nice to be around other people who are going through the same things, and people who support you. So I think charity will always have a role, both financially and socially.

Publicly funded institutions such as libraries and community centres can also offer this. There’s no reason other than political ideology why welfare cannot fund these things too. Which isn’t to say there isn’t a place for charity.

But of course there is a reason. A government-funded institution has no one with a stake in its long-term success. Its only goal is preserving itself and capturing more resources from the government. Small-scale philanthropy thus has a key role to play here.

Funding for basic educational standards and a minimal social safety net is already a huge spending commitment for even the most successful governments, and it's not clear if "welfare" can expand beyond that.

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#108

Post by christophilus »

xnorswap wrote: post #99
beefield wrote: post #85

Okay, I think I have some weird blind spot here. I have really hard time understanding the reasoning behind philanthropy being a societal good that should be subsidized by taxpayers. Let's take econ 101 and revealed preferences. It is obvious that if you give 100 bucks to a charity you get utility worth more than that 100 bucks. Otherwise you would not do that . And there is zero difference on the mechanics there if…

> if you give 100 bucks to a charity you get utility worth more than that 100 bucks I find that a very odd statement to make. It is a statement that actually denies that people can act charitably at all. It comes across to me as a statement routed in a complete lack of empathy. I'm not disagreeing with your overall point that actually less reliance on philanthropy and more tax funding of welfare and initiatives would…

I was going to say the same thing, and yet…

Let’s say that you give someone $100 so that they can feed their family. The good feeling you get, and the sense of justice, etc is worth $100 or more to you. Therefore, you got at least $100 utility out of it.

Maybe? That’s what I’m guessing the OP meant.

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#109

Post by nicoburns »

zozbot234 wrote: post #107
nicoburns wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Publicly funded institutions such as libraries and community centres can also offer this. There’s no reason other than political ideology why welfare cannot fund these things too. Which isn’t to say there isn’t a place for charity.

But of course there is a reason. A government-funded institution has no one with a stake in its long-term success. Its only goal is preserving itself and capturing more resources from the government. Small-scale philanthropy thus has a key role to play here. Funding for basic educational standards and a minimal social safety net is already a huge spending commitment for even the most successful governments, and it's…

> A government-funded institution has no one with a stake in its long-term success. Its only goal is preserving itself and capturing more resources from the government.

Why would you say that? By that logic a charitable institution has no one with a stake in it's long-term success. It's only goal is preserving itself and capturing more resources from donors. There's nothing about governments which makes them inherently incapable of hiring motivated staff.

In my experience, government workers, be they school teachers, nurses, librarians, or community workers are often some of most highly motivated workers I have met.

> it's not clear if "welfare" can expand beyond that.

It is clear if you believe that such funding is available from philanthropic sources. It's just a question of who we wish to give control of those resources to.

Re: Much philanthropy is a routinized exchange between salaried bureaucrats

#110

Post by krzysiek »

benpbenp wrote: post #92
krzysiek wrote: post #78

> In the contemporary world, philanthropy is distinctively American. We give about four hundred and seventy billion dollars a year—more if you count donations of time, physical labor, and material. America’s total is ahead of any other country’s, even as a percentage of G.D.P. Well, this is just not true. Americans give 2.1% of GDP to charity [1] while the whole world gives just under 3% [2]. Also when you take a loo…

Your global figure includes both donations and value of time donated ([2], pg.8) Your US figure ([1]) doesn't say anything about value of time donated so I'd assume it is not included. Finally, the metric where Netherlands and Switzerland come out on top in [3] is in size of philanthropic assets vs GDP. This is noteworthy for sure but is a an entirely different thing than amount of yearly donations.

You're totally right about donations + value of time. Thank you for pointing that out. It's hard to tell if these numbers can be compared. Also [4] paints a very different picture (although it's for 2016).

I think that philanthropic assets should correlate to donations, but you're right also here the numbers from this source cannot be compared to the numbers I mentioned before.

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_charitabl...

Post reply on HN