By John Stossel
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Charity -- helping people who have trouble helping
themselves -- is a good thing two times over. It's good for the beneficiary and
good for the donor, too. Stephen Post's fine book, "The Hidden Gifts of
Helping," reveals that 76 percent of Americans say that helping others is
what makes them most happy. Giving money makes us feel good, and helping
face-to-face is even better. People say it makes them feel physically
healthier. They sleep better.
Private charity is unquestioningly better than government
efforts to help people. Government squanders money. Charities sometime squander
money, too, but they usually don't.
Proof of the superiority of private over government
efforts is everywhere. Catholic charities do a better job educating children
than government -- for much less money. New York City's government left Central
Park a dangerous mess. Then a private charity rescued it. But while charity is
important, let's not overlook something more important: Before we can help
anyone, we first need something to give. Production precedes donation.
Advocates of big government forget this.
We can't give unless we (or someone) first creates. Yet
wealth creators are encouraged to feel guilt. "Bill Gates, or any
billionaire, for that matter," Yaron Brook, author of "Free Market
Revolution" and president of the Ayn Rand Institute, said on my TV show,
"how did they become a billionaire? By creating a product or great service
that benefits everybody. And we know it benefits us because we pay for it. We
pay less than what it's worth to us. That's why we trade -- we get more value
than what we give up. So, our lives are better off. Bill Gates improved
hundreds of millions of lives around the world. That's how he became a
billionaire."
Gates walks in the footprints of earlier creators, like
John D. Rockefeller, who got rich by lowering the price of oil products, and
Cornelius Vanderbilt, who did the same for transportation. The clueless media
called them robber barons, but they were neither robbers nor barons.
They and other creators didn't just give us products to
improve our lives, they also employed people. That's charity that keeps on
giving, because employees keep working and keep supporting their families.
"That's not charity," Brook said. "(It's) another trade. You pay
your employees and get something in return. But the employee is better off, and
you are better off.
"And when you start thinking about the multiplier
effect, $50 billion for Bill Gates? That's nothing compared to the value he
added to the world. That is much greater than the value he'll ever add in any
kind of charitable activity." Gates now donates billions and applies his
critical thinking skills to charity. He tested ideas in education, like small
high schools, and dumped them when they didn't work. Good. But if he reinvested
his charity money in Microsoft, might he have helped more people? Maybe.
Brook points out that Gates gets credit for his charity,
but little credit for having created wealth. "Quite the contrary,"
Brook said. "We sent the Justice Department to go after him. He's
considered greedy, in spite of all the hundreds of millions of people he's helped,
because he benefited at the same time. (When) he shifted to charity, suddenly
he's a good guy. My complaint is not that he's doing the charity. It's that we
as a society value not the creation, not the building, not the accumulation of
wealth. ... What we value is the charity. Yes, it's going to have good impact,
but is that what's important? ... Charity is fine, but not the source of
virtue. The source of virtue is the creation and the building."
What especially offends Brook, and me, too, is stigmatizing
wealth creators. The rich are made to feel guilty about making money. I
sometimes attend "lifetime achievement award" ceremonies meant to
honor a businessman. Inevitably, his charity work is celebrated much more
enthusiastically than his business creation. Sometimes the businessman says he
wants to "give back."
Says Brook, "It's wrong for businessmen to feel like
they need to 'give back' as if they took something away from anybody."
He's right. They didn't.
If we value benevolence, we must value creation.
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