FREE ENTERPRISE AND CHARITY Published in the Orange County Register, Apr. 5, 2013

FREE ENTERPRISE AND CHARITY

            Many people believe that political progressives are the Good Samaritans because they support government welfare programs that help the disadvantaged. Free enterprise, they say, only helps the rich get richer at the expense of the poor. Rarely, if ever, does one learn that, in fact, it is the free enterprise system that has produced the greatest outpouring of charitable giving the world has ever known.

Historically, the United States has been a world leader with regard to economic freedoms. Not coincidentally, private charitable donations total about $300 billion annually, an amount greater than the entire economies of countries such as Finland, Portugal, and Peru. No developed nation approaches the level of American’s giving and volunteering.

Rather than causing people to become self-absorbed and morally corrupt, free enterprise produces more socially responsible human beings. Charitable giving is closely correlated with ideology and beliefs about the role of government. According to economist Arthur C. Brooks (The Road to Freedom), “People who believe in the free enterprise system simply give more—both time and money—than people who don’t. Citizens who believe in limited government privately give much more than their statist neighbors.”

Rather than one man’s opinions, these statements were derived from the empirical evidence. A National Opinion Research study identified that those who disagreed that “the government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality” gave, on average, four times more money to charity than those who agreed with the statement. And those who disagreed strongly with forced redistribution gave eleven times more. The pattern also holds with respect to the likelihood to volunteer one’s time to charitable activities. These citizens understand that individuals and communities are the proper and most effective entities for solving social problems rather than giant government bureaucracies, however well meaning.

The link between attitudes about individual responsibility verses government and the resultant charitable giving are repeated in socially progressive European countries. American’s give three and a half times more per capita to charitable causes than do Germans, and fourteen times more than Italians. And they are more likely to give of their time than are the Dutch or Swiss. Social progresses tend to abrogate their personal responsibilities for charitable activities to the government. But which approach displays the greater moral character, the personal sacrifice of one’s own time and money or the insistence that another do the job and at someone else’s expense? And which yields the more excellent result?

Today’s politically correct rhetoric declares that it is the role of government rather than individuals to care for the poor and disadvantaged, that the job is too big for the common citizen to undertake. Not surprisingly this is music to the ears of the many who are pleased to dissolve themselves of any responsibility beyond voting for the most popular progressive candidate.

Social progressives are moving American from a culture of personal responsibility to one of reliance on the state and, in turn, from a culture of opportunity to one of envy. As Arthur C. Brooks states, “In dealing with poverty here and around the world, welfare and foreign aid are a Band-Aid. Free enterprise is a cure.” And, may I add, it is the morally superior option.