How much should I give to charity?

Question

I was amused of not finding this exact question already in the site.

I'm not looking for re-inventing the wheel as I suppose this is a well studied question.

What are the main known arguments or ideas that try to answer this question?

Answer 1

You shouldn't give anything to charity. Why support bureaucrats and poverty pimps whose livelihood depends on the existence of poor people; and who are therefore financially incentivized to be the very last people in the world interested in solving the problem of poverty.

Instead, if you give at all (which we'll address shortly) you should give money directly to poor people.

For example, the next time someone hits you up for a quarter ... give him a twenty dollar bill. Give him the means to go buy a decent meal or a pair of socks or something that he needs. Or shoot it or snort it or smoke it, in the end what do you care?

If your money comes with strings it's just a means of control, not really a gift. It's your way of bullying someone with your money. Instead, if you choose to give a fellow human a gift, give it without strings. Allow that human being the exercise of his free will to use it for whatever purpose he pleases. Be willing to respect his choice, whatever it is. Even if it's not a choice you'd make.

(I can hear you objecting to this last point. I'll give them money for socks but not for beer. It's for their own good. But you're wrong. When your boss gives you your paycheck she doesn't say, "You can only have this money if you spend it wisely." Nonsense. The money is yours to do with as you wish. And why should a gift be any different? It should be freely given with no strings. Otherwise it's just using money to control people for your own self gratification. Not far from exactly what that sounds like.)

Do this four or five times some afternoon. Spend $100 where it will really do some good: On a relatively meaningful sum of money for several people who need a break, who really needed an angel like you to come along at that moment. Do that once a year. On your birthday. Asking nothing in return: not even a tax deduction or the pleasure of feeling morally superior.

That's how you should give.

As to the question of if you should give; well, if you gave a dollar to every poor person; you would run out of dollars long before the world ran out of poor people. You'd become a charity case yourself.

It logically follows that it is ultimately moral to say no at some point. And since that point varies for each person and is only a matter of degree; it must be the case that you have no absolute moral imperative to give any money at all. You may do so by choice, to the degree that you wish; but if you choose not to, you have committed no moral wrong.

(edit) References by request

I originally had the idea on my own of giving $20 to a homeless person instead of a quarter. I have done so in real life. I later read the same idea from a columnist in the San Francisco Chronicle named Jon Carroll. He calls this method The untied way.

In that article, Carroll quotes a Rabbi Schmelke as saying,

When a poor man asks you for aid, do not use his faults as an excuse for not helping him. For then God will look for your offenses, and he is sure to find many of them. Keep in mind that a poor man's transgressions have been atoned for by his poverty while yours still remain with you.

Arguments that poverty pimps (ie government social workers, professional charity organizations, and so forth) actually contribute to the perpetuation of poverty are commonplace. One could literally Google to their heart's content on this subject, here's a random sample.

Failed "Welfare" Programs and the Web of Poverty

Housing assistance programmes and their contribution to poverty and unemployment traps

Welfare programs making poverty worse

Regarding my assertion that there are more poor people in the world than you have dollars, 3 billion people live on less than $2.50 per day. Assuming you have less than 3 billion dollars, my assertion is therefore properly sourced and objectively true.

I hope these references will be of use to the OP, who was looking for specific sources of thoughts on these matters.

Answer 2

One philosophy I have found is that it matters not how much you give, but how you give it. My favorite wording for it is "a gift given freely." If you give gifts to charity freely, the result will always be more fortuitous.

One existing argument along these lines shows up in a traditional method of teaching martial arts in oriental nations (and possibly other places as well). The "payment" paid to the teacher is treated as a "gift" rather than a "fee." The idea is that the money is treated as a gift; the teacher is under no obligation to teach you, and he has no obligation to teach you any specific thing you want to learn. Once it becomes a "fee" you are literally buying their time, and that has a fundamentally different flavor.

I have seen this in reference to a Karate teacher who would give free lessons in the park to whomever came by. He had quite a following with many dedicated disciples. They sought to pay him for his time, but he always dodged it. Finally they cornered him, begging to pay him for his services. He looked them in the face and told them, "if you paid me for my time, you could not afford it." He then went right back to giving the lessons away for free.