Bragging on Charity
From Zanecorpwiki
It's certainly gauche to publicly post one's charitable portfolio, but it's also odd that at the same time it's perfectly acceptable and normal that we have entire industries whose primary purpose to display status. Jewelry is the most obvious, but both the cost and purpose of most clothes is primarily one of display, not of function. Even cars and houses are looked at as "buy the best you can", where "best" really means most ostentatious. Consider that there is no more functionality in a Veyron than a Geo Metro, and in fact the Metro is the far more efficient of the two in terms of the way we actually use cars.
So why does it matter how we brag? I think it goes back to the idea that good works have to come from a good place. If you're doing good in order to brag, then you're somehow not really doing good. But that's kind of stupid really. Who cares what motivates people to donate. "Ostentatious donations" still feed the hungry and heal the sick just as much as heartfelt charity.
In fact, wouldn't the world be a much better place if instead of competing in who can afford the best suit, we competed in who can give the most? It seems kind of silly to me when you consider how many lives could be saved if we took the money spent on $10,000 suits and $100,000 cars and instead bought perfectly functional and still quite elegant $1,000 suites and $25,000 cars, sending the balance to those who have no food or basic health care.
I'm not talking austerity here, and if you really do appreciate a fine suit or the engineering behind a top end vehicle, go for it. The point is simply that our societal values which applaud clothing whose primary differentiator is price[notes 1] but would think it only boasting to wear a pin that said, "I gave $10,000 to feed the hungry!" But the person wearing the $10,000 outfit is doing the exact same thing. A $10,000 suit, for most people, is nothing more than a giant price tag that comes with a tie. So why do we applaud in one case and murmur in another?
I believe this idea that charity should be secret is rooted in our own desire to be selfish. If charity weren't secret and where something to compete in--like the size of our homes and cost of our clothes--we'd feel guilty when we spent money on luxury items. So we've all created a pact that we'll support each other in this idea that we should compete to see who can buy the nicest things and all ban together when someone steps out of line and makes us feel bad by letting it be known that they've chosen to instead spend their money on helping others.
In other words, we collude to create an environment that let's us do what we want without feeling guilty about it. Curiously, the problem is that by doing so we end up in a place that's worse for everyone. I'm a big believer in economics and I don't think we should give to charity because of some ephemeral "goodness", but because of concrete benefit. Think of all the money spent on luxury items--things that go beyond any functional purpose--in the past 50 years. If you took all that money and instead funneled it into cancer research, mental health advocacy, the study of economics, or even invested it in industry, where would the world be? Flying cars and all cancers cured? Maybe not, but we'd be a lot closer.
The idea is this: there is only so much function we know how to do. $20,000 gets you a car with AC, sophisticated traction control, state of the art safety equipment, HD radio, Blu-Ray player, etc. $100,000 gets you car with all those somethings, but it's shinier. Sure it may be faster, but it's also less fuel efficient and only has two seats. There's nothing wrong with the $100,000 car, but if we'd taken that $80,000 difference over the thousands of purchases of expensive cars over the past 10 years and put the money to something useful, then maybe we'd have the option to actually buy cars with new functions. All electric, self driving, who knows?
In the broader sense, the idea is that it's good to put your money where it counts. If as a society we recognized those that put their money where it counted the most and acclaimed the man who feeds a village with $80,000 more than the man who buys a shinier car, then we'd all benefit because we'd all be living in a better world.
Notes
- ↑ I'm not saying there is no artistry in high fashion nor incredible engineering in a super car. My point is that most consumers are unable to appreciate the finer points of those things and instead are relying almost exclusively on price to tell them which is the best and what they should buy (as long as they can afford it). It's easy to influence people's perception of things, and a high price is like reading a good review. A super car is better than a Geo Metro is some respects (and worse in others), but humans are deeply social, and we need to fit in. But we also prefer a simple summary rather than a complex comparison. That's why price is so powerful; we take it as an easy summary of "total goodness" which we can compare, apples to apples, to competing products. Of course the Veyron is better than the Metro because it costs more than the Metro. It's easy. That's why, for the vast majority of consumers at all socio-economic levels, price is the primary differentiator.
