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Comment by SeanLuke | Hacker News Reader

I vaguely recall that there are classic levels in Jewish philosophy regarding philanthropy, and among the highest is to give with no expectation of any return whatsoever: that means not only giving where it matters, but to do so anonymously, to organizations that don't benefit you (no opera companies), and to people with no ties to you. In this respect Chuck Feeney has been incredible.

This is not to dismiss the likes of Bill Gates: he has been very public with his donations, but in some cases (notably celebrity) notoriety in your donations may create a multiplier effect as it encourages others to do likewise. Even so, I think this is still on a lower-rung, philanthropy-wise, than Feeney's approach.

Nonetheless, we're sitting here praising someone who reduced himself from billions to $2M, but we must remind ourselves that this is unimpressive compared to the poor person who donates $25 to others while starving herself. The value of money is nonlinear. I'm sure that Feeney would say this as well: he no doubt sees himself as saddled with the burden of billions of dollars rather than someone doing something amazing.

I wonder if I ever will have the strength to do what he has done.

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Maimonides defines eight levels in giving charity (tzedakah), each one higher than the preceding one.

On an ascending level, they are as follows:

8. When donations are given grudgingly.

7. When one gives less than he should, but does so cheerfully.

6. When one gives directly to the poor upon being asked.

5. When one gives directly to the poor without being asked.

4. Donations when the recipient is aware of the donor's identity, but the donor still doesn't know the specific identity of the recipient.

3. Donations when the donor is aware to whom the charity is being given, but the recipient is unaware of the source.

2. Giving assistance in such a way that the giver and recipient are unknown to each other. Communal funds, administered by responsible people are also in this category.

1. The highest form of charity is to help sustain a person before they become impoverished by offering a substantial gift in a dignified manner, or by extending a suitable loan, or by helping them find employment or establish themselves in business so as to make it unnecessary for them to become dependent on others.

[0] https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/eight-levels-of-charita...

Muslims also have a similar tier system of giving charity, but because Islam mandates charity from its followers at a fixed rate (a flat income tax for charity), it places the "communal funds" very low in the totem pole.

Actually the Prophet Muhammad said a similar thing to what Feeney has said here about wanting to give charity while alive rather than after his death:

> A man came to the Prophet and asked, "O Allah's Apostle! Which charity is the most superior in reward?" He replied, "The charity which you practice while you are healthy, niggardly and afraid of poverty and wish to become wealthy. Do not delay it to the time of approaching death and then say, 'Give so much to such and such, and so much to such and such.' And it has already belonged to such and such (as it is too late)."

https://muflihun.com/bukhari/24/500

I guess Jewish "tzedakah" and Arabian "zakat" have anyway both the same linguistic root, both being Semitic languages and everything related happening in the same small part of the world (if the word itself has some other origins).

There is specific arabic word for it "Sadaqah" which means charity. Zakat is actually one of the Islamic pillar about charity to purifies. There is specific percentage or amount for different zakat. Zakat is the form of charity.

9. When the donation wouldn’t occur without a tax break.

10. When the donation gives you favors in return.

11. When your donation is taken by force through taxes

Not sure why you're being downvoted, you actually do have a good point... I guess people are uncomfortable with directly acknowledging that social programs are funded by "donations" that are taken by force (i.e. taxes).

They're not "donations".

They're taxes, period. There's no moral benefit to paying them in the same way there's no moral benefit to obeying traffic laws. It's not a charity as it's not voluntary. It's the cost of playing the game.

I would argue there is a moral obligation to obeying traffic laws.

Historically, most societies considered maintaining social order as a moral obligation. Guest Rights and Obligations etc seem to disappear as society and governments became more effective. That’s somehow translated into the idea that not paying taxes is somehow perfectly ok. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospitium

"Every tax, however, is to the person who pays it a badge, not of slavery, but of liberty. It denotes that he is subject to government, indeed, but that, as he has some property, he cannot himself be the property of a master."

Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations.

It comes from the same pocket. The scale of charitable donations is usually inversely proportional to tax rates and redistribution in a country. When people are highly taxed in high redistribution countries, they feel less compelled to give directly since the state is doing it for them (in addition to having less disposable income).

Maybe there is also less need/causes to donate to if living in a high redistribution country (and yes proximity is important for a lot of people at least emotionally).

You should check out France to find out if high redistribution eliminates poverty (hint: it doesn’t).

But it does a very swell job at eliminating most of the worst of abject misery that comes with poverty in most other places.

Being poor in Latin America is an exponentially worse experience than being poor in France.

So wont private donations. I believe some forms of poverty are unavoidable if you want to have a free society (i am not saying I endorse either side). The country I live in has the rule you are not allowed to treat mentally ill people against their will (if they are considered harmless). There seems to be some evidence that quite a number end up homeless. So what can you do? Not realising being sick is one of the symptoms of some of these (treatable) diseases.

Adding more money wont solve anything.

It’s the cost for some. If you’re rich enough you pay far less tax because you have access to an army of people whose job it is to help you do that. They leave us suckers to pay.

That’s not right. I think more of people who pay their fair share. Feels like a moral issue for me.

>>They leave us suckers to pay.

Except that's not true at all. Vast majority of taxes come from the richest. They might pay less percentage wise than me and you, but they pay the most in absolute terms.

>>I think more of people who pay their fair share.

I think more of people who pay more tax, not of those who pay more percentage wise. Ie - someone who makes a million dollars and pays 100k in tax seems to be contributing far more to the system than someone who makes 20k and pays 4k in taxes - even though the second person paid more percentage wise. Which one of these is "a fair share"? Why is one person literally paying 25x as much in taxes? Do they use the roads and hospitals and prisons and the police 25x as much?

I mean, I can see both sides of this argument - but I do dislike when people just go "oh us suckers down here are paying all the taxes" - like, no, we just don't.

>Do they use the roads and hospitals and prisons and the police 25x as much?

By use do you mean "physically interact with" or "reap the social benefits of?" Because for one of those it's a clear yes.

> They might pay less percentage wise than me and you

Isn't income tax higher for those that earn more?

Usually, yes, if you are paid like a normal employee. I'm jumping straight to the point that many people have an issue with - that once you're wealthy enough, you don't make most of your money through a salary, you make it through capital gains, dividends, and other financial tools that make your effective tax rate much lower than it would have been had you taken it as a salary.

In a huge oversimplification, let's say you're in UK and make £100k/year. If you take that as salary, you'll pay 20% tax on around £40k of it, then 40% tax on £50k, with the remaining £10k being tax free. On the other hand, if you open a limited company that makes £100k, well, you're only paying 10% corporation tax on any profits - but of course the way to play this game is to expense everything imaginable under the sun, so ideally you have close to zero profit at the end of the tax year. Yes, the money isn't "yours", it belongs to the company, but you can expense things like your rent, gas, electricity, "work meals" etc. Then take £10k salary from your own company which is within the tax-free allowance. Voila, in the eyes of someone external, you've made £100k but through "clever tricks" paid less than 10% tax on all of it. Of course most people don't realize that isn't not that simple, but things like this lead to very quick judgement.

That’s far from accurate. Income taxes contribute ~$1.932 trillion, but payroll taxes add $1.373 trillion and are often ignored in these calculations. As social security is capped at relatively low income levels the tax burden on the rich is much lower than often suggested.

Further, the often quoted top 1% is hardly the rich in the US, if you compare the income vs taxes paid of the top 0.01% their paying a lower percentage of their income than the average programmer in federal taxes. State taxes have a similar breakdown with property taxes, fuel taxes, etc representing a vastly lower burden for the 0.01% of income earners.

This is further compounded when you consider tax free wealth accumulation of capital gains where taxing in sale mean zero tax on possibly decades of income, or possibly ever. You don’t deduct charitable donations from social security taxes.

PS: As to what the rich receive in taxes. They receive a functioning society which is economically worth far more to themselves than lower income earners.

CBO did an analysis of household income, all federal taxes paid, and transfers and services. On a net basis, the top 40% pay for everything at all levels of government. The bottom 40% pay for only a portion of what it takes to keep themselves alive. The middle 20% splits between the two groups, but the portion that are net payers, pay very little.

> They receive a functioning society which is economically worth far more to themselves than lower income earners.

This is not obvious. Historically, the lower classes have very little rights and are subjected to oppressive behaviors from the kings and nobles and other well to do.

That’s amazingly misleading, people receiving Social Security and Medicare benefits tend to have lower earnings than they did while working full time. Effectively, averaging people who pay lots of taxes and receive minimal benefits with others who are receiving massive benefits gives a very distorted view of what’s going on.

Similarly, lumping everyone in the top 40% with the Rich completely hides how little the rich pay by lumping them in with the highest effective tax rate groups.

PS: It gets even crazier than that when you consider Trump for example qualified as having zero income for multiple years.

There will always be force in the equation. Do you think that your payments to the armed bands that would replace government would be lower?

> 10. When the donation gives you favors in return.

What if the "favor in return" is a reward after death? For a lot of people of faith, their motivation to donate is often post-resurrection reward... (The Bible is fairly against this attitude though. As Jesus for instance says "But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing" -- https://www.bible.com/bible/59/MAT.6.3.ESV ; and the general message seems to be that everything you have is a gift from God, so you're actually only just giving away what you've been gifted.)

I think they are talking about the type of favors where your child with moderate grades suddenly gets accepted in Harvard.

Then you're on a very thin line between a donation and a bribe.

It's a large portion of major donations.

If Bob Johnson donates $20M to a hospital to create the Johnson Cancer Wing, he is in benefiting himself: he is buying his name on a building.

If Bob donates $20M to a local symphony orchestra that he attends, he is benefiting himself by buying better music for him to listen to.

If Bob donates $20M to a candidate for office whose policies would ultimately benefit Bob, well...

I wouldn't call these bribes. But they're less like donations and more like purchases.

Fair enough.

Thanks for the clarification.

Even though I disagree with the candidate for office. It may be legal and technically not a bribe, but it does have a really bad stench and is arguably one of the reasons why US politics are so fucked up.

I never understood why people keep pointing out that charity donations "might" qualify as tax brakes, as if that's something bad or even worse - some way to cheat the system. Can someone explain this to me?

As far as I understand - by donating X amount of money, the most you can possibly get, is an X deduction from your taxes. But the total amount of money spent at the end is still X. You haven't saved anything anywhere. You have sort of re-routed your taxes from the government to someone else.

The only way I can see fraud in this is when people set up a charity owned by themselves, then donate money to it and simultaneously have it as a tax deduction - that's just fraud. But I still don't see what's wrong with simply getting a tax break for donating - it doesn't save you anything, in fact, it's an added hassle at your tax return time(if you live somewhere where you have to do those at all).

If you buy X you pay tax. If you donate to provider of X and get X in return as a gift you don't pay tax.

For example donating money to keep your local church running is paying for a service without paying taxes for it.

Another thing you can do is donate earmarked money that they will use to buy your products. For example Google donating chromebooks to schools. That is marketing dollars.

Libertarians seem to think that taxes and charity donations are two equally valid (but not necessarily equally effective) ways to help your community. They feel like they have a choice to assign a portion of their wealth to either. Oftentimes, they also believe that charity will be a more effective approach by bypassing the bureaucracy of the state.

Some people believe that taxes are the primary way to implement solidarity among citizens of a state. I believe that they are correct. Charity comes only second, and should in no way impact taxes. Charity, although a beautiful thing, is fundamentally in-egalitarian: it is not benefiting the Republic as a whole, but only a fraction of people who are in need, and typically fulfill certain criteria (e.g., being Christian, living in a given area, etc.). In most cases, charity targets very specific needs and people that are seen by the wealthy as being worthy of their help. It has a fundamental flaw insofar it keeps the power of wealth allocation to the wealthy.

Notwithstanding corruption and aggressive lobbyism, taxes are much more egalitarian and democratic.

I didn't say it was "bad", I just classified it at the bottom of parent's list in terms of selflessness. I'm arguing that when you get the money back in tax it's less selfless than the other donation scenarios mentioned.

There's definitely an argument to be made about whether or not it's better for an individual to choose how to spend their tax dollars rather than a countries people to decide. It's definitely less democratic (I can't see how you can debate this), but I'm not sure the good of it is clear cut... That being said, as the class gap increases, individuals choosing how to spend a large portion of their taxes contributes to a concentration of power in the upper caste.

Maimonides was a smart dude, but I must say I don't understand the highest level here: do you have to know they are about to be impoverished? If so, don't you know their identity to give them a job, a loan, or a gift? Payday lenders might qualify? Maybe I need to consult a rabbi.

I would guess a loan is extended mostly so the one taking it can save face. Some people would choose to live on the streets rather than take a handout and a loan makes it palatable. There’s a (possibly apocryphal) story about George Clooney offering 15 friends $1,000,000 but only if they all take it, so that the friends who would say no out of pride could justify it.

This is sincerely meant, but if you consider 2 and 1, isn't that a description of progressive taxation in the modern, regulated-capitalist, social-democratic welfare state?

(btw, I made that description up to try and describe the kinds of states I'm referring to. e.g. the USA once was in that category and no longer is in my view, while many European countries probably are in that category).

EDIT: I'd like to point out, I'm assuming no/little corruption. i.e. the theoretical view of such a state.

Not really; taxation is compulsory. If you steal everything I own and distribute it to try to improve other people's lives, I don't suddenly have any kind of charitable moral high ground because of where my money went, and neither would I be complicit if it were used to hire puppy hitmen or whatever evildoers like to do these days. The end effect is similar, but intent matters.

I agree that intent matters, but insofar as a state governs with the consent of a majority (leaving aside questions of whether that consent is real), then taxation (incl. the level of taxation and its distribution e.g. welfare vs warfare) represents a broadly agreed mechanism of the state to provide the kind of safety net that OP described as levels 2 and 1.

Personally, I live in such a state (not the US), that has a safety net, and am happy to contribute via taxation. Not all my fellow citizens are happy to contribute and I accept that. I earn a decent wage and don't jump through hoops to minimise my tax. At the end of the day, people vote for governments that are more or less taxing.

IMO then the people happy to contribute to such a system would mostly fall under 1/2 (under the assumption that one's motivations are altruistic and not centered on the communal benefits they also receive), but the people who aren't happy to contribute would not qualify (at least, not via their taxes alone -- there might be other reasons for rejecting taxes, and they might contribute elsewhere in a way that still puts them in the 1/2 category).

The idea is that helping people become self sufficient is more important than the concerns about who knows what. Even if both parties know who the other is, it is still the highest form of charity.

Though probably it is possible to do both. I suspect there are many modern charities that help people become self sufficient where neither the donors not the recipients know who each other are.

Disclaimer: IANAR (I am not a Rabbi)

> Payday lenders might qualify?

Jewish law prohibits lending with interest. There are many ways around that but Maimonides here is referring to a basic non-interest loan

The best one in my book is number 5:

5. When one gives directly to the poor without being asked.

Why would anything following that actually be better?

Just to take a specific example from the list: preventing people from becoming poor in the first place is better. How could it not be? They avoid the mental pain and stress of being poor and feeling like they are dependent on handouts to survive...

Seems a bit subjective. How do you know that they will become poor if not for your action?

If you need to do this over and over again, and we're talking about just that, it seems like giving to the poor is a pretty good algorithm.

> How do you know that they will become poor if not for your action?

Here's a simple example. A mine closes down. You can start giving the ex-miners money on an ongoing basis to let them keep paying their bills, maybe. Or you could fund training for them to learn a new career.

How do you know they will become poor if you don't fund the training? You don't. Maybe they would have managed to change careers anyway. But chances are you are in fact helping people avoid poverty.

> If you need to do this over and over again, and we're talking about just that,

Ah, maybe this is the disconnect. No, we are precisely _not_ talking about doing this over and over again for any given person.

Or put another way, this is the "give a man a fish vs teach a man to fish" thing. The latter, if it's an option, seems evidently better to me.

Giving money to people is the best way to help them. It turns out that most people are generally entrepreneurial and will spend the money on what they think is the most important need for them at the moment. Maybe the person doesn't need training; maybe they already have a skill, and what they really need is some capital to buy equipment or materials to pursue that activity.

This idea is behind a the success of the Earned Income Tax Credit in the USA. Giving people in need a substantial capital injection at a single point in time is a very impactful to people without the means to save.

This isn't about whether help is provided in-kind or in cash; there is indeed good evidence that the latter is better. And there is evidence that a lump sum is better than an extended dribble: that was more or less my point in the comment you are responding to.

But also, this is about the fact that if you provide help when a person just starts needing it, it might not take much to get them back to financial stability. If you instead wait until they have been out of the workforce for a while, lost their house, and maybe ended up with a substance-abuse problem as a coping mechanism, a much larger investment will be needed to get back to "normal". And that's not even counting the suffering involved in the interim in the second option.

I haven't studied the original text myself, but I believe that #1 is slightly off. It's not necessary to do the charitable action before a person becomes impoverished. Rather, the idea is that:

a) teaching a man to fish is better than giving a man a fish

b) the former is also more dignified for the person receiving help

This applies whether a person is going to become impoverished or is currently poor. And this idea of dignity is strong enough that it outweighs other considerations, such as anonymity on either side (of course, there's the question of whether giving someone a job anonymously is better than doing it with one or both parties' knowledge... and I don't know what Maimonides would have said).

It's kind of a weird escalation -- steps 8->2 incrementally make sense (the more anonymized you are, the 'better'). But then the difference between step 2 and step 1 is totally different, the distinction is no longer anonymity, but some measure of efficacy of the support.

Back in Maimonides' time it would be difficult to provide things other than a lump sum in an anonymous manner. If you employ someone, teach them a job or give them a loan they'll get to know you. So I think step 1 drops anonymity for long-term purpose.

I think the point is that the sustainability of preventing poverty and making someone self sufficient is nuanced and not just a simple transfer funds. It's such an improvement over the other donor -> recipient charity which _don't_ fix dependency that the anonymization and cheerfulness of the exchange doesn't even matter: fixing the core problem permanently is a higher goal by kind, not just degree.

Maybe the axis is not anonymity per se but the dignity preserved by the recipient. Anonymity is not the goal, it's a means to an end. And providing employment achieves that end even better than anonymity does.

In this light the lower levels also make sense, each progressive level allows the recipient to feel less guilty (the donor is not annoyed that they have to help, or doesn't even need to be asked, etc). The really interesting bit here is that the levels are not about how much the donor sacrifices but how good the recipient feels.

Excellent idea! I think you explained it.

That's an interesting point. To add to it slightly, maybe the goal is to create a healthier community. Without the guilt or annoyance you mention, it is possible for both the donor and the recipient to maintain a positive relationship going forward (less of an ongoing power dynamic or bitterness).

My guess would be that when these levels developed, most giving was within a close knit community.

I love this. 8-2 is all about the donor (how he feels, how morally it is) and basically 1 is about the recepiant what would be best for him/her.

It is like results matter most (less than the process; big corps will disagree on that)

How did he rank these? Some are obvious (1, 8). Can't really differentiate the rest. Any good articles about it?

I mentioned this in another comment, but I believe (no source, just speculation) that each progressive level does a better job helping the recipient maintain their dignity. Charity is not only about helping someone financially but also helping them feel good, too.

Level one sounds suspiciously close to actually paying taxes and let the social net built on it work its magic.

Now come on, downvote me to hell.

No that's exactly it.

Don't give fish. Give fishing rod, fishing right and fishing classes to people who need it.

Only morons think they are better off in society full of poor oppressed people. In a was a social net system is ultimate selfish move as it lowers crime increases productivity and so on. Instead of living in permanent danger akin to current Rep of South Africa.

Similar effect, perhaps, but different cause.

Taxes aren't voluntary.

You don't choose how much you owe.

Not all taxes go towards improving people's lives- in the US, many safety nets only kick in once you are impoverished, and can disincentivise work. As an example, the recent coronavirus add-on payments to unemployment often meant people at the lowest levels of opportunity would make more by staying home than if they got a job.

This isnt to say tax funded social nets are bad; most aren't. They certainly shouldn't be confused with charity, though.

"often meant people at the lowest levels of opportunity would make more by staying home than if they got a job"

Considering how low the Coronavirus add-on payments are, doesn't your point really mean that those at the bottom of the scale, where minimum rates have barely budged in the US - are vastly underpaid on a normal basis?

Wasn't the payout an extra $600 / week? That's equivalent of an extra $20 / hour of a 40 hour workweek after tax withholdings. Around half of income earners in the US make less than that from working, my wife's included. It should also be noted that a little over 2% only make the federal minimum wage.

In fact, the NYT broke this down on a state-by-state basis: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/23/business/econ...

Aside from whether or not the minimum wage should be increased, it does seem to demonstrate easily enough that the stimulus is a perverse incentive.

Bringing this back to the original point I was replying to, it utterly fails the definition of the top level of charity by encouraging people to become dependent on the largess of others.

That's not to say it is therefore a bad thing, but it certainly isn't a reason to call paying taxes the highest level of charity.

On the one hand, I think your comment is correct, insightful and important.

On the other hand, I have a firm policy of always downvoting comments on HN that say things like "I know I'm going to get downvoted for posting this", because I think doing that should be strongly disincentivized.

I'm compromising by neither upvoting nor downvoting and leaving this reply.

Have my upvote as well. I was still frustrated by a similar observation I recently posted that went negative, much to my surprise, and made me imply a pretty libertarian bias.

Apologies for the bile, I‘ll engage in a more civil discussion tone going forward.

There's one major difference: taxes and the social net only help those in your country. And if you're in a western country (where most people with wealth are), the people who most need your help are elsewhere.

Concretely, you can help a lot more people with the same amount of money if you focus your giving on the global poor (ex. Africa), rather than those in the US. One way to do this is https://www.givedirectly.org/

I appreciate this kind of discussion. It's interesting to understand the moral philosophy of different cultures (and hopefully getting at some fundamental universal understanding, or at least a consensus), and it's important to talk explicitly about it. Informative and useful.

> The highest form of charity is to help sustain a person before they become impoverished by offering a substantial gift in a dignified manner, or by extending a suitable loan, or by helping them find employment or establish themselves in business so as to make it unnecessary for them to become dependent on others.

This is also pretty much one of the ways a certain Shi'a Islam community, Dawoodi Bohra, administers loans which they call Qardan Hasana (the diginifed loan).

[0] https://www.thedawoodibohras.com/2020/07/16/qardan-hasana-th...

> we must remind ourselves that this is unimpressive compared to the poor person who donates $25 to others while starving herself

Is it? This is a very Christian way of looking at donations: personal sacrifice / self-deprivation is what matters. [1]

However, utilitarians – notably Effective Altruists [2] – would make the opposite argument: what matters is the impact that you make with the dollars you donate (both in amount and allocation).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesson_of_the_widow%27s_mite

[2] https://www.effectivealtruism.org/

Impact is important, of course, but making an impact when you have everything is not difficult. Things that are not difficult are not impressive.

Ease is not always related to importance. Edit: I misread, by bad.

Op specifically used the word "unimpressive", not "unimportant".

He did not start with everything.

That's wonderful and not relevant to whether giving away an amount that still leaves you with everything is impressive.

In what way does he still have everything? It looks like he’s got enough to sustainably generate about a median household income in my state. That’s a long walk from everything in my book.

> It looks like he’s got enough to sustainably generate about a median household income

Oh come on. He's 89 years old and has millions of dollars still. How long do you expect him to live? "Sustainably generating" a median household income in perpetuity is an interesting bar to set. You're aware that most of the country doesn't have any savings at all, yeah? That the current median _at_retirement_age_ savings for the US is around 150K? That he's still getting an actual income from social security payments because why not?

My challenge was to your hyperbolic claim that he "still has everything" and an insinuation that that makes giving away $8 billion (with a B) over his lifetime not as impressive because he didn't give away the last 0.025% of his wealth.

That he's getting payments from Social Security after a lifetime of contributions to Social Security is also of no concern to me (I view it as the overwhelming default and entirely proper).

Gates' wealth keeps increasing. Sure he gives a lot away but, but he is making 1+ billion per year above what he gives away.

It is great that money is going to charity, it is great that money previously belonging to Gates' is going to charity, but I would be far more impressed by you if you donated $100/year to the Internet Archive than I am if Bill Gates donated $100 million.

In other words, I don't think anyone claims that $100 will help more than $100 million, but there is no great personal moral achievement in giving away something you don't need and can't use.

Of course one could argue that we should not be dependent on the goodwill and grace of billionaires to choose to donate their wealth to good causes, but rather should tax fortunes at an onerous rate and put that money in public, democratic control, regardless. For each Chuck Feeny and Bill Gates how many Waltons OR Kochs do we have?

One could argue that there is probably some correlation between great wealth and good judgement about the effective use of money.

In that regard, perhaps it’s good to have social intervention performed by a mixture of democratic and individualistic entities. Perhaps one will address things that the other might miss.

You could make that argument, and in doing so you are implicitly stating either:

(a) I believe that the government will use its money to impact the world in a better way than billionaires do, or

(b) I concede that (a) is false, but I don't care. It's not about the impact we make with the money, it's about dragging billionaires down.

Personally, I'm interested in impact. I have little faith that paying taxes to the US Government is a more effective way to generate positive impact in the world than personal charitable donations.

If I could pay my taxes to Bill Gates I would – my tax dollars would be used to eradicate polio or malaria, rather than on bureaucracy and starting wars.

You "concede" that (a) is false? That's quite a strong claim. At least with "the government" managing it, there's at least some degree of democratic control, accountability, scrutiny, and influence. When that management is left to private enterprise, that's not the case.

Then you're getting into a philosophical debate about how morally "right" democracy actually is. That's dangerous territory.

I'm not saying I have a better idea, I don't, but democracy has been the driving force behind some pretty heinous stuff over the centuries (most obviously the resistance to equality of race, gay rights and universal suffrage). It's just less terrible than the alternatives that exist in the world today (e.g. dictatorship).

At least in giving your money to a Buffett, a Gates or a Feeney you have some evidence that they intend to put it to good use.

> Then you're getting into a philosophical debate about how morally "right" democracy actually is.

Only insofar as you're getting into a debate about how morally right it is _compared to billionaires and/or corporations spending the same money_.

I certainly believe (a), but there is a 3rd option

(c) I believe in direct wealth distribution (e.g. via a basic income) and that you believe 100m people with $10 will spend that money in a better way than 1 person with $1bn.

As someone who leans towards a general rule of government == inefficient but doesn’t necessarily like the logic of “billionaire individuals will allocate it better”, I really like your option C re-frame here.

Yes. I'm far less worried about government == inefficient (I've learned too much about AI and the genetic algorithm to have faith in human-based optimization strategies, and this is one reason I'm enthusiastic about population-based optimization along Basic Income lines) but possibly even more offended by the logic that specifically billionaires will allocate wealth better.

I feel like the very existence of billionaires demonstrates that they are a self-selecting pool of abusers and/or criminals running exploits that place their interests above the system they're in. Even the idea of 'the wealthy allocate money better' is ridiculous. Towards what, themselves? It's like saying cancer allocates body resources better, because cancer can get into a position where it conclusively 'wins'.

(d) I believe 1 person will spend $1bn much better than 100m will spent $10.

But you've got to aggregate a) over all the billionaires, not just the ones giving. We're not comparing Bill Gates to the US Govt for impact per dollar, we're comparing all US billionaires vs the US Govt.

If you give more money to the government, doesn’t that implicitly mean you are giving/donating about 15% of that money to the military industrial complex?

Then vote for officials who wont put that money into the military industrial complex.

If you live in a real democratic country, then you have no excuse. YOU* chose that government.

* obviously a generalization, but in the end enough people chose that outcome.

Billionaires act against the interest of the working class more than they act in favor of it. That's how they became billionaires.

Billionaireness is profoundly extractive by definition. Leave class out of it and billionaires inherently benefit themselves against any and every system they are in, and that's including other billionaires (they're exceedingly competitive).

That means that billionaires also act against the interests of the donor class as a matter of course. If they were not the very definition of unaccountable power, you wouldn't see anybody defending them or their typical behaviors.

You are forgetting or ignoring the damage to society caused by multi-generation accumulation of wealth and the consolidation of power that arises from that. These were the primary concerns when the founding fathers were debating estate tax..

That is quite a short sighted and funny evaluation.

It is so benignly restricted since it excludes the possibility of charity and government funding can have a positive impact. Instead it is some fight against good and evil.

I don't know what it has to do with Christianity, but you are free to visit a church, maybe they can tell you something about the gospel you linked.

I find some of the arguments in https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/07/29/against-against-billio... rather compelling.

> Two of the billionaires whose philanthropy I most respect, Dustin Moskovitz and Cari Tuna, have done a lot of work on criminal justice reform. The organizations they fund determined that many innocent people are languishing in jail for months because they don’t have enough money to pay bail; others are pleading guilty to crimes they didn’t commit because they have to get out of jail in time to get to work or care for their children, even if it gives them a criminal record. They funded a short-term effort to help these people afford bail, and a long-term effort to reform the bail system. One of the charities they donate to, The Bronx Freedom Fund, found that 92% of suspects without bail assistance will plead guilty and get a criminal record. But if given enough bail assistance to make it to trial, over half would have all charges dropped. This is exactly the kind of fighting-mass-incarceration and stopping-the-cycle-of-poverty work everyone says we need, and it works really well.

> If Moskovitz and Tuna’s money instead flowed to the government, would it accomplish the same goal in some kind of more democratic, more publically-guided way? No. It would go to locking these people up, paying for more prosecutors to trick them into pleading guilty, more prison guards to abuse and harass them. The government already spends $100 billion – seven times Tuna and Moskovitz’s combined fortunes – on maintaining the carceral state each year. This utterly dwarfs any trickle of money it spends on undoing the harms of the carceral state, even supposing such a trickle exists.

Many other examples are provided.

How do you know what the Walton's and Koch's are doing with their wealth? Perhaps they are doing the same thing as Feeny but without the fanfare. I think they are. Are you singling them out because of political differences?

Waltons and Kochs actually give a lot. I am very close to an organization that receives money from both of their foundations. They do have a political agenda with much or their giving but in certain areas it could be considered apolitical.

It is impressive that he and his wife cleaned themselves out and live frugally.

> This is a very Christian way of looking at donations: personal sacrifice / self-deprivation is what matters.

I don't think it's what matters necessarily, but I do think that this is why he is receiving praise here and elsewhere. That's a problem, because if we're going to praise him for his sacrifice, we should remind ourselves that his sacrifice is minor compared to other donations due to the nonlinear effect of money.

Now Feeney certainly has had more of an impact, and that's great, but he had that impact because he was fortunate enough to have billions of dollars to give away in the first place. Being lucky is not a valid reason to be praised, I think.

Indeed I don't think Feeney wants to be praised: he just wants to be rid of his wealth in a meaningful way.

Why praise sacrifice at all? Personal suffering/sacrifice adds no value to the community, and in fact reduces it.

Maximizing positive impact should be the goal.

Perhaps someone with 25 to their name better serves the community by keeping it?

> Perhaps someone with 25 to their name better serves the community by keeping it?

We have to assume that in the given scenario the other person needed it more and nobody else was stepping up.

> Why praise sacrifice at all?

You don't even have to praise the concept of sacrificing in general to praise caring enough to help those less fortunate even when helping has a cost. The alternative is for nobody to help except those for whom money no longer has any meaning, ie billionaires, and I don't see Jeff Bezos building homes for the homeless.

> Personal suffering/sacrifice adds no value to the community, and in fact reduces it. Maximizing positive impact should be the goal.

The first sentence is false. Donation is zero-sum in absolute dollar terms, no money is gained or lost, but money _does_ have diminishing utility to the individual, so the raised person can gain more than the lowered person loses. So a person can sacrifice AND maximize positive impact.

For what it's worth, I think the right approach is to eat the billionaires instead of waiting for the person with $25 to sacrifice even further for the person with $5. Clearly eating all of the billionaires would maximize positive impact.

This is a very utilitarian view, and it’s only considering the economic aspect at that. I’m not trying to argue that you’re wrong—I just want to suggest that there are other ways of looking at sacrifice that lead to the opposite conclusion.

Giving to help someone worse-off than you—ideally—engenders a feeling of gratitude and humility that makes our society a better place. Experiencing a greater sense of gratitude can help more than just money: gratitude helps one keep a positive mental outlook and can carry one through difficult times.

As a man of faith myself, I believe in divine blessings—both during and after this life—for sacrifice and generosity. That’s not my motivation for doing good, but I do believe that sacrifice does make a better community and a happier individual.

Now, as for the limit case of being utterly destitute (e.g. $25 to their name), a wise man once said “it is not requisite that you run faster than you have strength”—looking after yourself is noble, provided you continue to do what you can.

I don’t see how sacrifice and suffering is necessary tied to charity, gratitude, humility and brotherhood.

Sacrifice can be a demonstration of love and caring, but is the latter that is important. Sacrifice is just evidence. Would you agree?

I agree that sacrifice can be evidence of love and compassion. I would go a step further and argue that sacrifice is requisite for these things, especially in their highest forms.

Sacrifice exposes what is important to a person—both to external observers as well as the individual in question. A marital relationship—for example—requires immense sacrifice on both spouses’ sides for it to work out. Without sacrifice, affection wanes.

I don’t think sacrifice necessarily equals suffering. Sometimes it can. But based on my experience, when the sacrifice is made willingly and for a good cause, it serves more as a source of joy that I can get outside myself and aid someone in need.

Now, waisted or senseless sacrifice—yes, that doesn’t make much sense. I see a distinction between the two, but that could just be me. Does that make sense?

Some people see risk and sacrifice of the self as the foundation of heroism.

A fire code inspector might save more lives than a fire fighter, but nobody sells calendars of sexy fire code inspectors, or hands out medals for bravely insisting that tower block's staircase have a sprinkler system fitted.

Of course, an Effective Altruist / utilitarian would say who cares about feelings and medals? After all, altruism by definition isn't seeking medals.

> Personal suffering/sacrifice adds no value to the community, and in fact reduces it.

What? How? If you see this extremely locally, like the community being, your country, sure, but I don't think that's apply when you consider the community has being the whole world.

> Perhaps someone with 25 to their name better serves the community by keeping it?

Does it though? We see this as a first world country, where even for the one starving a bit, still get a life much better than a good proportion of the world. That means that keeping that 25$ will help you surely, but would serve much better a few others, if given correctly.

I guess HN is probably a place where disproportionate ego exist in a higher percentage than anywhere else, that many believe that they are the 10x programmer which is worth more than everyone else, but I'm a firm believer that given the same opportunity as me, anyone else could have done the same as me, thus helping many reach the same opportunities as me, will help more than helping myself.

Sadly I'm still a bit selfish and still want a better life for myself. I still do self sacrifice, but it's extremely local.

As we are trying to judge someone's character or morality I would consider it along the lines of - if that poor person were in Feeney's shoes would they have done the same? If Feeney were in that poor persons shoes would he have done the same?

The forces on a wealthy person giving up almost all of his wealth are also pretty great, but in a different way, when compared to a poor person doing the same.

As #1 in the original list implies, it may be most important to be lifted out of poverty as this is what creates fulfilling civilisation. So one might argue that the poor person should invest what little money they have into their own future first, in a way which will improve their lot, as this will give them the opportunity to help many others (like Feeney did).

Bill Gates' sacrifice includes the years of hard work, perseverance and self realization which produced the money.

Also stealing CP/M.

Time whitewashes everything. Bill Gates has spent many years doing good work as a philanthropist. I'm not sure this undoes the fact that much of his gain was from blatant cloning, ruthless abuse of monopoly, and substandard products.

I am very happy he donated all that money, and I greatly respect him for doing it without calling too much attention to himself, especially compared to others.

But it says a whole lot about Forbes that having at least $2M -- and I'm betting maybe a small apartment and a modest car and possibly even health insurance -- counts as "officially broke" in America.

Well he lost 98%+ of his wealth, that could be considered as going broke in relative terms.

Not just Christian, but other religions and philosophy as well. Utilitarianism isn't necessarily the default and is easy to subvert for selfishness. "See, really, me getting as rich as possible is justified because someday I'll be able to use this to solve some abstract problem I've decided is the REAL issue that needs to be solved..."

As long as you convince yourself that the returns to compound interest are higher than the returns to charity at any one point, it's easy to justify just pushing off your donation time to sometime arbitrarily far in the future, and high luxuries can be justified as "self-care" that enhance your own productivity or whatever. Utilitarianism can too easily become perverted to just being self-serving.

Charity in Hinduism falls under 3 modes, as with pretty much everything else in Hinduism - Tamas, Rajas & Sattva

Tamas - given at wrong place/time, to wrong (unworthy) person, without respect/decency, with contempt.

Rajas - given with reluctance, expecting return (either from recipient, or praise)

Sattva - given at right time/place, to right (worthy) person, with humility, without expectation of return.

Note that while others religions mainly dwell on not expecting return and anonymity, Hinduism stresses not expecting return but does not stress anonymity as much as it stresses finding the right patra (bowl) i.e. right recipient.

Donating $100 to a poor person, who also happens to be wicked, and/or will definitely spend it on vices, is actually a bad donation, because it causes more harm to the recipient and society, than good.

Also, timing - a litre of blood donated to a save a life in urgent time, is worth more than a litre of blood spilled in war to gain territory.

Also, place - a donation done in holy land or temple is worth more than a donation from a local philanthropy club.

Also, the reward for donation is gaining goodwill in the heart of Bhagavan (God). And He dishes out goodwill proportional to the 'effort' rather than 'amount' - a $100 wage earner donating $10 is judged the same as $100 million donated by a billionaire.

Source : Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 17, verses 20,21,22

That's a good point. And 'broke' isn't 100% broke just yet, he's not going to have to sleep under a bridge. But he's broke enough that the wrong accident can put him on the far side of the line easily enough. Obviously this goes for many people but they tend to end up in that situation by accident, not by design and as an example to other billionaires he's pretty impressive.

Try imagining Larry Ellison doing this.

I'd presume (perhaps incorrectly, so perhaps hope), that he's pretty insured up to avoid that fate.

it's really hard to imagine someone at age 89, with 2 social security incomes and $2M, who is apparently more frugal than most technology workers, being one "wrong accident" away from "the far side of the line easily enough".

an 80% loss of that $2M cash leaves him with a paltry $400K which, assuming a rate of return == inflation, is 10 years of $40K/yr spending, to say nothing of 2x SS income.

people's idea of "being broke" is just ridiculous.

Healthcare in the United States is perfectly designed to take your every last penny in the last 6 months of your life. If Chuck Feeney isn't actually broke today, there is a fair chance that he will be on his death bed.

At his age healthcare is covered by taxpayers, just like in most other countries.

Nursing homes are only covered longterm if you are destitute. Good places will take your assets and use them all up until it’s gone then apply for Medicaid.

Won’t pay for personal in-home nurses either.

But 2 million should buy him plenty of elder care. I would have kept 10 million just in case.

Nursing home is not “healthcare.”

If you don't go, you die. How is that not?

>If Chuck Feeney isn't actually broke today, there is a fair chance that he will be on his death bed.

Aren't you forgetting that that he already "lost" the vast majority of his wealth? If he actually cared about the money he would have given it to his children. If he loses his last $2 million on healthcare he probably wouldn't care.

He'll never be "broke", because with his money he acquired something way more long lasting than cash, which is social acquaintances. Philanthropy has been used to this exact end throughout history, and is still today.

So of course his billionnaires friends will bail him out in the highly improbable event he should really need the money. The level of networking he reached means he doesn't need to spend a dollar until his last breath if he so wished.

Based on the famous Trinity study [0], $2M would be enough for he and his wife to draw $80k/year plus social security. That's certainly more than most people are able to retire on, but I wouldn't call it lavish, and I imagine the remainder will be donated after death. I find it hard to fault him for wanting to make sure he and his wife can enjoy their last few years without having to worry too much about the exorbitant cost of end of life care in this country.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_study

You shouldn't compare expenses for someone at this level of networking with a standard one. At his level of social bonds, he can live without money anyway.

Wouldn't Chuck just receive donations from the thousands of people he personally knew and helped? I doubt people would let him go broke under any scenario... the man spent time with Bill Gates and Warren Buffet.

Maybe. But maybe not. He doesn't know, and we don't know. And therefore he is taking a big risk.

> but we must remind ourselves that this is unimpressive compared to the poor person who donates $25 to others while starving herself. The value of money is nonlinear.

There are other perspectives on this. Often, the very poor person does not hope he will ever get out of poverty, and that makes it much easier to have a sharing/charitable mindset. Keeping the $25 will help him for a few days, after which he'll be broke again and no better off. Giving it away will have the same end result, albeit a few days earlier - but it will be a charitable act he'll feel good about for life, and may also make a friend.

The person for whom it is most difficult to give is usually the one at the edge of poverty. If he keeps the money, he has a chance he'll escape the cycle of poverty. If he gives it away, he'll never change his station in life. For this somewhat wealthier person, that $25 has a lot more value (As an aside, I'm not sure I would respect him much if he gave it away).

To paraphrase from a popular movie: Put people in a pit with no hope of escape and what you get is fairly boring. But give them a glimmer of hope that they can escape, and then watch how they will destroy one another in their attempts to get out. Charity is generally cheap for those who have nothing: They know they are not losing much when they give it away.

Although the 'Billions' Chuck Feeney gave away would likely be the focus of his story, his greatest achievement IMO is creating the 'actionable model for philanthropy' which others have since followed creating a much larger impact from what was done through his wealth alone.

>this is unimpressive compared to the poor person who donates $25 to others while starving herself

I absolutely agree and think of this often when I see the philanthropy figures published each year when the top Billionaires have donated <0.2% of their wealth where as there are individuals like this gentleman[1] who donates 80% of his earnings from road side tea stall to educate underprivileged children[1].

[1]https://yourstory.com/socialstory/2019/11/tea-seller-kanpur-...

I could easily retire on $2M so I think it wouldn't be that hard to give away $1998M if I get to keep $2M. It's not like $2M is poor, given it's post tax it's like being able to live on a salary of $75k a year for 40yrs and, he likely owns a house already (or is that part of the $2M, though even if it is he can sell it and live off the money).

I'm not trying to downplay him in anyway. I'm just saying that $2M in the bank is still an extremely comfortable life so there is not much hardship to be had in giving up everything over that.

Also, as for donating anonymously vs non-anonymously I do it non-anonymously as trying to add social proof that you should donate. The more it appears normal to donate the more people will donate, or so I believe. If I could do that anonymously I would but people read me (my blog or other things), they don't read anon's blog/tweets, whatever.

Very true...

And He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury, and He saw also a certain poor widow putting in two mites. So He said, “Truly I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all; for all these out of their abundance have put in offerings for God, but she out of her poverty put in all the livelihood that she had.”

Luke 21:1-4

I don't think that seeking to be starving and on the street should be the ultimate end goal of philanthropy. I much prefer to limit my generosity via the First Rule of Rescue: be careful not give away so much that now you need charity yourself.

This whole idea kinda loops back on itself and I wonder if wanting to donate your wealth in order to achieve “higher rungs” isn’t itself a perverse incentive than a rung system ought to penalize!

Why is it good that we let one, unelected man decide how wealth is distributed in the community?

If we had taxed him at the rate we have taxed people in the 40's and 50's maybe there would not be such a need for all these "philanthropists" to give "their" money away.

And give me a break, he is NOT broke. I live on 20K a year and I do not even think I am broke. When he is living like St. Francis of Assisi let me know.

>we must remind ourselves that this is unimpressive compared to the poor person who donates $25 to others while starving herself

While it is truly selfless, I'm not sure what is __really__ harder; for a person living a multi-billion-dollar lifestyle to change to a million-dollar lifestyle, or someone who is used to living on the penny, to give away most of what they have....

Is Chuck Feeney Jewish?

Feeney is a pretty dang irish surname

"This is an anglicized form of an Olde Gaelic name O Fiannaidh - composed of the elements 'O' meaning a 'grandson (of)' or 'male descendant' and 'Fianna' - a 'soldier'. The main O Fiannaidh clan was located in the parish of Easkey, Co. Sligo."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7PHIh2pqh0

Not related to the article, however the third paragraph of your comment touches on a controversial idea, so I'll add another perspective.

On the idea of sacrifice as virtuous.

Sacrifice is only compatible with selfishness. This is because for an action to be a sacrifice, there is two criteria in which it must meet.

The first criteria are that the individual must love themselves.

She who has no value of her own life, cannot sacrifice it, just as she could not sacrifice a rock found in a cave. Vice versa, an individual which holds her own life as immensely valuable, is able to sacrifice it for an ideal, however this leads to the second criterion.

The second criteria are that the individual must hold no value in the ideal or cause in which they contribute towards.

This is because if you hold something as valuable, and you give it up for something of equal or greater value, you are not sacrificing, but rather trading.

Each trade has its own currency, and what that is I leave to the reader to investigate, but sacrifice is only possible for the woman that loves herself and does not hold any value in the ideal in which she sacrifices herself for.

Thus, if you do see virtue in sacrifice, it is only possible because of selfishness, and this is problematic.

Trades are not all selfish. A person trades selfishly if they are trying to get some benefit for themselves. Trying to benefit only other people is not selfish.

Every rational choice is made based on some personal values. A person with unselfish personal values can take action on those values. Do you think their action occurs because of their selfishness?

Are all rational actions selfish?

I think that is not a useful way to think.

The comment I was replying to mentioned it being noble for a woman to starve herself to give $25 to a stranger.

I disagree, and I pointed out the contradiction of praising sacrifice while disparaging self-interest, when the two are not possible without each other. If you disagree with that, I would be interested in hearing why.

Trades are not all selfish.

I never made the point that trades are inherently selfish, only that in some trades monetary gain is not the only form of currency.

Are all rational actions selfish?

Yes. You state in your second paragraph that "Every rational choice is made based on some personal values". I agree. If you act on your own personal values, this is selfish. And as all rational choice must be in service of personal values, then all rational action is selfish.

I'm very open to the idea that I'm wrong on all of this, but I can not see how, so I thank you for engaging with my comment.

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