NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/or/politics/670

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From: [e-mail] (David Veal)
Newsgroups: or.politics,alt.politics.clinton,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.politics.elections,ba.politics,co.politics,ne.politics,nj.politics,ny.politics,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Ignorance - Was Re: VOTE, BABY, VOTE!
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 17 Nov 92 20:00:55 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail] (USENET News System)
Organization: University of Tennessee Division of Continuing Education
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In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Robert Reed) writes:

>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (David Veal) writes:
>|In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Robert Reed) writes:
>|>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (rank Crary) writes:

>|>Altruists are in the minority, and our government can legitimately impose
>|>fees to provide for the general welfare, not as charity, but as a
>|>reasonable fee for services.
>|
>|Altruists had *better* be in the majority.  We *were* discussing the majority.
>
>This is irrelevant to the discussion of charitable benefactors.

       The discussion was revolving around government social programs versus
private charities.  I'd think whether altruists were in the majority would
be very relevant.

>|>Surveys have shown that in
>|>most major markets, only about 10-20% of the viewers/listeners to public
>|>broadcast stations actually contribute to the support of those stations.  If
>|>altruists were in the majority, you would never hear another pleading pledge
>|>drive again.
>|
>|Not neccesarily.  Does not giving money to one thing disqualify somebody?
>|Does not giving money to a station they watch mean they give money to
>|*nothing*?  Do you have to give money to every single cause that presents
>|itself to you to qualify for the term "altruist?"  Is it not possible for
>|someone who watches public television to give money elsewhere?  There
>|are many worthy charities.
>
>Once again, you're missing the point.  Public broadcast survives by fostering
>the altruistic inclinations of its audience, but those who pay for public radio
>are the ones who acknowledge that they are paying for a service--the rest are
>all welshes.  They fail the altruism test even when they derive a benefit from
>it.

       So there are people who gain benefit from other people's generosity.
Is that wrong?  If it is, we've got more than a slight problem with
charities.  But even so, does it devalue other good they might do?  Other
contributions they might make?  If I give all my spare money to the March of
Dimes, am I a bad person if I watch PBS?

>They may well be altruists when it comes to some other donation supported
>interest because altruism is by its nature self-interest directed (i.e., I
>myself am interested enough to give something away when I don't have to).

       You can make anything seem a bad thing if you're prepared to define
it as such.  Such a definition though doesn't make it so.

       Are you suggesting that sacrifice solely for another's good is an
impossibility?  You seem to be.

>Similar lacks in altruistic sentiment can be found wherever charitable needs
>outpace the support they get: support for the homeless, welfare of the farm
>workers, contributions to support local theatre, the list goes on.  I just
>picked one glaring example from the legions available.

       Ok, we both know that many charities don't have sufficient funding.
But read on:

>|Yes, but did the chicken come before the egg?  How do you convince people to
>|contribute to worthy causes when they've been taught that dealing with those
>|causes is the government's responsibility and they, literally, think they
>|gave at the office?
>
>Well, we've had twelve years of time for people to show how trickle-down works,
>or to demonstrate themselves as one of the thousand points of light, and in
>that time,

        What does trickle-down economics have to do with anything?  If your
condemning, as many people do, "Reagonomics" in your bid to portray the
average person as unwilling to give to charity, you're barking up the wrong
tree.  The primary objection to "trickle-down" is that it used money from
the middle class and poor to subsidize the rich.  That would seem to
indicate, then, that it would, by lowering the amount of disposable income
"normal" people had the amount money they have available to give to
charities would also be lower.
        You can't have it both ways.

>corporate donations have generally fallen (for example in arts
>funding), or have been shifted to PR (resource companies painting the golden
>image of the small ecological benefits they've been begrudgingly forced to do,
>rather than whole heartedly mitigating their assaults).

       Wow.  I get the impression that if, say, Pepsi Cola wiped out hunger
in Africa you'd cynically denounce it as an advertising scheme.

>|Counterexamples, showing people's generosity, about [sic, abound?].  How
many>|charities are there in this country?  Hundreds?  Thousands?
>
>Formation of a charity is not the same as funding.
>
>|How many millions (billions?) of dollars do they raise a year[?]
>
>It's certainly NOT in the billions.

       If five dollars a year is contributed for every adult person in the
United States that's a billion dollars.  Most of the people *I* know
contribute more than that.

>|How many of those PBS shows have corporate sponsors?
>
>Those corporate sponsors' donations are certainly gladly welcome, but in most
>cases they are a modest contribution w.r.t. the program budget, for which they
>get a lot of great PR.  It is in fact, cheap advertising.

        So lemme get this straight.  If a corporation gives funding under
its own name, its cheap advertising.  How could they give money without it
being effectively advertising?  Contribute anonymously?  At which time you'd
point to the drop in corporate sponsors?

>|We have an "adopt a school" program locally and a great many people and
>|businesses give a great deal of money all year round.
>
>My point was NOT that altruism doesn't exist, but that the motivational
>mechanisms behind charity do not follow a "free market" model

        I wasn't aware I had claimed it did.  But along those lines, you
above claimed that altruism was, at its heart, a selfish act, which would
seem to indicate it does follow, at least partially, a free market model.

>--there will
>always be a much greater gap between charitable needs and their fulfillment
>than between business needs and their profitable mitigation.

        Unless you can prove to me that businesses are the primary (and can
only be the primary) source of charitable contributions, I don't see how it
matters.  People (most anyway) don't give money to see their name in lights
or to have cheap advertising.  And they give (even if you apparently don't
see them) anyway.

>|The question is, did the government move in to fill a shortfall, or did the
>|rising taxes to implement social programs give people less money to contribue
>|to private charities?
>
>I notice that you pose this rhetorically, but all I need to do is look back
>about a dozen generations or so to see the work houses and debtors prisons and
>realize that the problems of the poor existed before the level of government
>intervention we now provide was available.  Private charities didn't meet the
>need then and they still don't.

       Economics has changed since then.  During the times of the work
houses and the debtor prison there did not exist the middle class as we know
it today.  When the people who give to char

>I do realize that there is a balance between
>the needs of the poor and the ability of the non-poor to provide support.  I
>don't expect anyone to vow poverty to help their fellow citizens, but I do
>think we Americans have shown too much self interest and greed (especially
>during the '80s) than is good for us.
>
>|> But I still do not see how you can say in such general
>|>terms that our government as netted us more harm than good.
>|
>|       That depends a great deal on how you look at things.  Many people
>|think the odds for "evil" are greating [sic] when the government is involved,
>|because acting to promote the social "good" on the part of the government
>|requires some power to coerce people to do what the government wants, and
>|the people in the goverment are human and naturally tend to be corrupted
>|by power.
>
>Whereas the alternative is the corrupting power of the purse.  Lots of other
>people feel that the vacuum left by the absence of government will be filled by
>private power brokers whose capacity for "evil" is much greater than the graft
>and waste that is the inevitable result of bloating government bureaucracies.
>Ever hear of the "robber barons"?  Once again let me restate my point.  I don't
>deny that governments inherently generate a certain amount of waste.  But it's
>never been clear to me that the waste and corruption is any less in business
>than it is in government, or that these factors are not inherent in the
>bureaucracies that both systems engender once they grow large enough.
>________________________________________________________________________________
>Robert Reed            Home Animation Ltd.        503-656-8414
>[e-mail]    5686 First Court, West Linn, OR 97068
>
>Going to Extremes
>Shake and shake
>The catsup bottle.
>None will come,
>And then a lot'll.
>--Richard Armour
>________________________________________________________________________________
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David Veal               University of Tennessee Div. of Cont. Education
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