Why the Findings About Patterns of Charitable Giving by Conservatives and Liberals Matter

In response to recent postings (here, here, and here) about Professor Arthur Brooks's new book, ""Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth about Compassionate Conservativism," Mark Sargent asks "Who Cares?" and Eduardo Penalver says that he's not "sure what the comparison between religious conservatives and secular liberals proves." Even assuming that conservatives contribute far more to charity, including non-religious charities, than do secular liberals, Mark and Eduardo apparently see this finding as nothing but a factoid, deserving no attention and having no relevance to questions of social justice.

Let me offer just two ways (and there are many more) in which this finding is significant and deserving of further reflection:

First, the finding demolishes the frequently-stated argument, repeated on occasion even on the Mirror of Justice, that religious conservatives turn a cold shoulder to their disadvantaged neighbors and are concerned only about moral and cultural issues. Or as a former colleague of mine accused, "You conservatives care about people only before they are born." Now, while one certainly may disagree with conservative skepticism about state-oriented solutions to economic problems, one may not legitimately insinuate that the position taken by conservatives is animated by a hardness of heart or a disinterest in matters of poverty. To the contrary, and Professor Brooks's findings are consistent with many such studies over many years (this is really nothing new, but just now being discovered in the general media), conservatives pay their taxes, faithfully if with less sanguinity about whether the government wisely uses the money it extracts, and then conservatives still reach deep into their own pockets to support those in need. In the future, then, debates about how best to provide economic opportunity must proceed on the merits, rather than by easy claims that liberals are the party of economic virtue and sly winks suggesting that conservatives are greedy misers.

Second, even those of our friends here and elsewhere who consistently advocate a larger governmental presence and role in the economy and in providing benefits to the poor should be disturbed by the apparent consequence that most who support larger government treat it as a substitute for personal engagement in their own communities. Like the old joke about the person who avoids a charitable request by saying "I gave at the office," too many liberals appear to be saying "I gave to the government." Whatever may be the merits of increasing government welfare spending and government redistribution of wealth, it cannot be gainsaid that such activities also have deleterious effects on society, by fattening bureaucracies, by separating people from their neighbors as government assumes greater responsibilities, by sometimes crowding out private charitable solutions or imposing destructive regulations on private charities (including regulations that religious charities cannot in good conscience accept), etc. As Catholics, we ought to be more concerned about what is happening to human hearts than we are about any economic arrangements or political agendas.

As the Holy Father wisely says in his Encylical Deus Caritas Est (para. 28b: "The State which would provide everything, absorbing everything into itself, would ultimately become a mere bureaucracy incapable of guaranteeing the very thing which the suffering person—every person—needs: namely, loving personal concern." By contrast, "[t]he Christian's programme—the programme of the Good Samaritan, the programme of Jesus—is 'a heart which sees'. This heart sees where love is needed and acts accordingly." I'd suggest that an excessive reliance on government can blind the seeing heart and lead to a loss of love, of true charity toward neighbors.

Whereas conservatives need to be constantly challenged as to whether their proposed solutions offer genuine and concrete hope for alleviating poverty on a systemic basis, liberals need to be challenged to retain a healthy skepticism of government-centric solutions that can become, literally, soul-less.

Greg Sisk