Dont't feel redundant.
Repetition with variation is a good idea. There is value in repetition.
Your 10% point is minor in your overall presentation.
Jeff Kaufman and Julia Wise giving a solid majority of their income to charity
I'll just point out that 50% is not a majority.
Have you guys ever been tempted to make it 50.1% so you can say it's a majority? ;) Or do you think it's better not to seem too extreme?
I think spreading this idea to 'secular church' type organizations that have popped up could be useful.
http://www.religionnews.com/2014/04/11/dont-call-atheist-church-secular-communities-growing/
Particularly since it could help such communities with their goals of attracting higher engagement (i.e. no this isn't just some fluffy weekend thing, our community has ideas it is serious about)
One data point for you: I'm not convinced.
Tithing is a mix of social cohesion and power enforcement for a single specific in-group (usually a religion). If you don't aspire to be a member of exactly one such group, or if the group doesn't claim exclusivity on your tithe, the 10% schelling point becomes meaningless. There's no awareness among your peers, so there's no social enforcement mechanism.
I also worry that this is straying a bit into dark arts: it's not about you making better decisions, and it's not about helping others make better decisions, it's about convincing others to follow your preferences.
The below may sound harsh but I hope it is understood from taking a more high level view. I laude your effort and altruism but to make it effective maybe another tithe is not the right way.
So I'd like to put the tithe somewhat into perspective. Originally the tithe was the income tax. My reading is that at all times the collected tithe (together with other taxes) was used partly for charity, largely for functioning of society (infrastructure, defense, education, ...) and partly for presentation/status as well as luxury of the rulers.
Basically the same wit...
I think Germany is different because many government programs solve what we leave to Charity here in the US. I think its important to give and incentivizing that behavior is always a good idea.
Thanks for the article. I like the idea of an expectation of tithing. I had two alternatives to your suggestions.
A society that taxes more, and spends those taxes on social services, is less in need of tithing. In general, I believe we reach social justice better and give those who need it more reliable help through taxation than donations. So while I agree both are good, I think US needs to seriously reform it's tax system, in particular creating a more extensive and progressive tax system, as a priority. The fact that US do...
Two points.
First, the hard part in all of this is to actually persuade people to donate. You're proposing a simple rule, but you're silent on how will you convince the people to accept the rule.
Second, the doctor and the accountant you would like to reach are (at least in the US) most likely Christians. If you do convince them to donate 10%, they will most likely donate it to the church and church-affiliated charities. Mr.Murphy would have a good laugh if your proposal ended up giving massive financial resources (and so, power) to churches in the US.
I grew up Catholic and go to church occasionally, sometimes on vacations(thus not only my church), and I only know about tithing academically. I have never been asked to tithe let alone been "pressured pretty heavily"to do so, in a systematic way.
Now I drop into the collection plate, but nowhere close to ten percent. I have also worked with the total, and less than five percent of checks are over twenty dollars.
Just a data point.
Another couple of data points:
I spent decades as a pretty serious Christian (Church of England, in the UK; the CoE encompasses multiple styles of Christianity, and I was towards the evangelical end). There were from time to time sermons etc. encouraging us to give money to the church, but tithing as such was seldom mentioned and never regarded as an obligation.
My wife is still Christian and active in a church (also Church of England, also in the UK, kinda middle-of-the-road in theology, style of worship, etc.) and I'm pretty sure its donations are far less than 10% of the congregation's total income.
The Church of England gets about £400M in donations per year. Average weekly attendance at CoE services is about 1M. If we guess that 80% of those are regular attenders, and that all donations come from regular attenders, that in line with national statistics 64% are of an age to be employed and 80% of those actually are employed at an average annual salary of £26500, then that suggests a total income from possible givers of about £14B/year, hence donations at about 3%.
Most of the figures in the previous paragraph are guesses or poor approximations, so don't take this too seriously. The...
less than 2% of national income is donated even in the US, and the US is incredibly charitable by developed-world standards(the corresponding rate in Germany is about 0.1%, for example).
It's worth noting that nations like Germany handle far more of their social problems through tax-funded state programs, and thus have commensurately higher income taxes (and other taxes). A German who donates 0.1% to charity may have done more good with their tax money than Americans do with their 2% to charity, thanks to the coordination and centralization advantages of state action.
I made a comment on another site a week or two ago, and I just realized that the line of thought is one that LW would appreciate, so here's a somewhat expanded version.
There's a lot of discussion around here about how to best give to charities, and I'm all for this. Ensuring donations are used well is important, and organizations like GiveWell that figure out how to get the most bang for your buck are doing very good work. An old article on LW (that I found while searching to make sure I wasn't being redundant by posting this) makes the claim that the difference between a decent charity and an optimal one can be two orders of magnitude, and I believe that. But the problem with this is, effective altruism only helps if people are actually giving money.
People today don't tend to give very much to charity. They'll buy a chocolate bar for the school play or throw a few bucks in at work, but less than 2% of national income is donated even in the US, and the US is incredibly charitable by developed-world standards(the corresponding rate in Germany is about 0.1%, for example). And this isn't something that can be solved with math, because the general public doesn't speak math, it needs to be solved with social pressure.
The social pressure needs to be chosen well. Folks like Jeff Kaufman and Julia Wise giving a massive chunk of their income to charity are of course laudable, but 99%+ of people will regard the thought of doing so with disbelief and a bit of horror - it's simply not going to happen on a large scale, because people put themselves first, and don't think they could possibly part with so much of their income. We need to settle for a goal that is not only attainable by the majority of people, but that the majority of people know in their guts is something they could do if they wanted. Not everyone will follow through, but it should be set at a level that inspires guilt if they don't, not laughter.
Since we're trying to make it something people can live up to, it has to be proportional giving, not absolute - Bill Gates and Warren Buffett telling each other to donate everything over a billion is wonderful, but doesn't affect many other people. Conversely, telling people that everything over $50k should be donated will get the laugh reaction from ordinary-wealthy folks like doctors and accountants, who are the people we most want to tie into this system. Also, even if it was workable, it creates some terrible disincentives to working extra-hard, which is a bad way to structure a system - we want to maximize donations, not merely ask people to suffer for its own sake.
Also, the rule needs to be memorable - we can't give out The Income Tax Act 2: Electric Boogaloo as our charitable donation manual, because people won't read it, won't remember it, and certainly won't pressure anyone else into following it. Ideally it should be extremely simple. And it'd be an added bonus if the amount chosen didn't seem arbitrary, if there was already a pre-existing belief that the number is generally appropriate for what part of your income should be given away.
There's only one system that meets all these criteria - the tithe. Give away 10% of your income to worthy causes(not generally religion, though the religious folk of the world can certainly do so), keep 90% for yourself. It's practical, it's simple, it's guilt-able, it scales to income, it preserves incentives to work hard and thereby increase the total base of donations, and it's got a millennia-long tradition(which means both that it's proven to work and that people will believe it's a reasonable thing to expect).
Encouraging people to give more than that, or to give better than the default, are both worthwhile, but just like saving for retirement, the first thing to do is put enough money in, and only *then* worry about marginal changes in effectiveness. After all, putting Germany on the tithe rule is just as much of an improvement to charitable effectiveness as going from a decent charity to an excellent one, and it scales in a completely different way, so they can be worked on in parallel.
This is a rule that I try to follow myself, and sometimes encourage others to do while I'm wearing my financial-advisor hat. (And speaking with that hat: If you're a person who will actually follow through on this, avoid chipping in a few dollars here and there when people ask, and save up for bigger donations. That way you get tax receipts, which lower your effective cost of donation, as well as letting you pick better charities).