[krzysiek]

> In the contemporary world, philanthropy is distinctively American. We give about four hundred and seventy billion dollars a year—more if you count donations of time, physical labor, and material. America’s total is ahead of any other country’s, even as a percentage of G.D.P.

Well, this is just not true.

Americans give 2.1% of GDP to charity [1] while the whole world gives just under 3% [2]. Also when you take a look at a comparison between countries [3] you can see that the US is far behind (percentage-wise, not rank-wise) countries like Netherlands (14%) or Switzerland (13.3%)

1. https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&...

2. https://www.privatebank.citibank.com/newcpb-media/media/docu...

3. https://www.axios.com/2019/11/30/most-charitable-countries-w...

[benpbenp]

Your global figure includes both donations and value of time donated ([2], pg.8)

Your US figure ([1]) doesn't say anything about value of time donated so I'd assume it is not included.

Finally, the metric where Netherlands and Switzerland come out on top in [3] is in size of philanthropic assets vs GDP. This is noteworthy for sure but is a an entirely different thing than amount of yearly donations.

[krzysiek]

You're totally right about donations + value of time. Thank you for pointing that out. It's hard to tell if these numbers can be compared. Also [4] paints a very different picture (although it's for 2016).

I think that philanthropic assets should correlate to donations, but you're right also here the numbers from this source cannot be compared to the numbers I mentioned before.

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_charitabl...

[croon]

What would be more interesting would be comparing it after including welfare/public education/healthcare/poverty rates etc.

Best case scenario would be where no charity is needed, am I wrong?

[krzysiek]

Honestly I believe that the other way around would be way better. There is a lot of inefficiencies in the way governments work, plus they operate like monopolies.

On the other hand there is competition between nonprofits, plus they are often multinational.

I find it interesting that some of the most efficient government organizations (like World Food Programme) actually operate as charities (in the sense that everyone can donate to them).

[suture]

I think you are very much wrong when talking about efficiencies. There are no examples in the history of the world of charity sufficiently providing for the needs of the poor at a national scale. There are lots of examples of government programs providing the basic needs of the poor at scale.

[BobbyJo]

> There are lots of examples of government programs providing the basic needs of the poor at scale.

I'm not sure what you're comparing here. Are you saying governments are more efficient because they are bigger? Are you saying they are more efficient because they've filled a need more completely?

The first is non-sense and the second is more a function of size and power than efficiency. Efficiency is about benefit per dollar, and governments are really really bad a that, typically making up for how bad they are by simply throwing more dollars at the problem.

[lostcolony]

People love to say governments are inefficient, but I always find that an interesting claim. It invariably relies on comparing government to much smaller scale organizations (such as charity), which obviously isn't comparable.

That is, I can be 100% efficient with my donation to charity by just...giving $20 to a homeless person. Oh look, 100% of my donation went to someone in need. A charity can be 90% efficient by collecting and distributing donations citywide; it's more widespread, and donations are less centralized, but there's cost in paying people to actually do the legwork. A government is doing stuff nationwide, distributing unequally based on need (measured in a flawed way, yes, but still requiring measurement, since it's politically untenable to do simple things), and is less efficient still. But that's...to be expected.

You see the same thing in private sector; the larger a company is, the less efficiently it runs. Walmart is the largest private employer; no one is claiming it's a well oiled machine of efficiencies comparable to a lean startup. Necessarily; it's just like with technology, the more distributed the system is, the less efficient it is. Saying that governments are inefficient and just throw money at the problem is like saying distributed systems are inefficient and just throw compute at the problem. While true, it nevertheless is still the only way to solve many problems at that scale, and comparing the 'inefficiencies' of hardware of, say, Google, to the hardware for local search on my home PC, isn't particularly meaningful rhetoric.

[PaywallBuster]

Walmart still have a lot of (combined) efficiencies otherwise, people would jusy shop at the local grocer if that was cheaper :)

Unlike the government, no one's forcing people to shop at walmart, and if they were loosing efficiency (charging higher due to Admin costs) people are more than welcome to move to any alternative that suits them best

[BobbyJo]

Your argument is rather confusing. You say they aren't comparable, then point out a plethora of comparisons. You then finish by demonstrating some of the reasons governments are inefficient.

All of this after leading with seeming disagreement. I'm a little lost.

[suture]

Efficiency at solving the problem at scale. What good does it do to have the most efficient system in terms benefit per dollar spent if it helps only a few people? Government is the most efficient at providing help at scale. For example helping Ukraine defeat Putin requires government and not charity. Want clean water across the country? Need government intervention. Want to provide universal healthcare? Need government intervention. Want everyone to read and write? Need government intervention. Charity is not sufficient to provide the needs of the populace. For one thing, relying on charities quickly runs into the free rider problem.

[axlee]

> The first is non-sense and the second is more a function of size and power than efficiency. Efficiency is about benefit per dollar, and governments are really really bad a that, typically making up for how bad they are by simply throwing more dollars at the problem.

This is definitely not an ideological and dogmatic statement obscuring centuries of experience across hundreds of government systems, oh no-no-no. Government is bad at everything, get it?

[maccard]

I'm definitely in the pro-government-involvement camp but

> There are no examples in the history of the world of charity sufficiently providing for the needs of the poor at a national scale.

This is just false. Literally right now we have the case where food banks are filling in the gaps of the UK government at a national scale.

[suture]

Remove UK government support for food for the poor. This includes school lunches and whatnot. Will the charities be able to fill the need? The answer is no. Charities can fill gaps but not beyond that.

[QuarterReptile]

This is true in the same way that US rail wouldn't be able to fill commuter demand if every ICE car disappeared. It should surprise no one that an organization accustomed to, and thus built for, one thing would fail to instantaneoulsy shift to doing a somewhat similar thing on a completely different scale.

[munificent]

> There is a lot of inefficiencies in the way governments work,

There are plenty of inefficiencies in businesses too. I don't understand how anyone who has ever worked for a small or medium-sized company can complain about government waste. Almost every job I've had has been just riddled with ludicrous inefficiencies.

> plus they operate like monopolies.

Every philanthropist has a monopoly on the use of their funds.

At least with tax-supported government programs, voters have representation on how those funds are used.

[ChrisLomont]

>Every philanthropist has a monopoly on the use of their funds.

And there are lots of them, not operating all under one central control, so they are likely to help local needs, compete in other spaces, and spread the effects.

> At least with tax-supported government programs, voters have representation on how those funds are used.

And then those funds are mostly sent to a big few items taxpayers hear about and not so much to any other needs.

Voters also have representation on how charity funds are spent, since voters are the people making donations. If anything, this means your funds target what you want instead of what others want you to spend on.

[blairharper]

Welfare should rightly fund "survival" and "levelling the playing field" resources, but charity can offer more than that - it can offer quality of life and a sense of community/belonging. It's nice to be around other people who are going through the same things, and people who support you.

So I think charity will always have a role, both financially and socially.

[nicoburns]

Publicly funded institutions such as libraries and community centres can also offer this. There’s no reason other than political ideology why welfare cannot fund these things too. Which isn’t to say there isn’t a place for charity.

[zozbot234]

But of course there is a reason. A government-funded institution has no one with a stake in its long-term success. Its only goal is preserving itself and capturing more resources from the government. Small-scale philanthropy thus has a key role to play here.

Funding for basic educational standards and a minimal social safety net is already a huge spending commitment for even the most successful governments, and it's not clear if "welfare" can expand beyond that.

[nicoburns]

> A government-funded institution has no one with a stake in its long-term success. Its only goal is preserving itself and capturing more resources from the government.

Why would you say that? By that logic a charitable institution has no one with a stake in it's long-term success. It's only goal is preserving itself and capturing more resources from donors. There's nothing about governments which makes them inherently incapable of hiring motivated staff.

In my experience, government workers, be they school teachers, nurses, librarians, or community workers are often some of most highly motivated workers I have met.

> it's not clear if "welfare" can expand beyond that.

It is clear if you believe that such funding is available from philanthropic sources. It's just a question of who we wish to give control of those resources to.

[mschuster91]

> A government-funded institution has no one with a stake in its long-term success.

Of course it has: pissed-off voters. Mismanaged government-funded institutions such as DMVs or social security systems are a regular troublemaker for politicians.

[sokoloff]

Is this feedback process the explanation for why those previously underperforming and frequently complained about government departments have now been fixed?

[naravara]

Charity in the form of "the community is coming together to do something of common interest" sure.

Charity in the form of "one rich guy writes a check because he felt like it" is too dependent on the capricious whims and priorities of a handful of rich people.

[rmbyrro]

Maybe a good relativistic metric would be donations per capita vs. GDP per capita.

Considering purchasing power parity GDP would be even better.

[paisawalla]

I suspect this accounts for the discrepancy in their accounting

> more if you count donations of time, physical labor and material

[chaosbolt]

Substract from that how much money you made from Iraqi oil and how many houses/infrastructure you destroyed there and the result might be negative, and that's for a single country.

This whole charity idea is stupid if you're a country like the US, it's like kicking someone in the balls then giving them an aspirin for the pain and bragging about how generous you are.