Charity?

I've been struggling to figure out where to go next after my last post, hence it has been over a week since I've posted anything. I'm reading the book that I mentioned in the last post, "Human Action: A Treatise on Economics" and although I find the concepts very interesting it is really dry and written in the early 1900's therefore I do not understand everything. Furthermore, I am on about page 105 of 800 something. So....I am going to take a break from how our actions are calculated to make us happy and talk about something that perplexes me. Charity.

Ok, so it doesn't really perplex me but I think that some people (I mean people who make laws, etc.) really get confused about what charity truly is. Charity is benevolence, or an act based upon a belief in the goodness and worth of other people. In other words doing something for someone because you think he is a human being and should deserve it (even if he hasn't done anything to deserve it), and it is good to give and to help others in need, right? But what if you were forced to help other people? First of all, that negates the true meaning of charity because the action of goodwill has to be a result of an internal belief, not an external force. This is why I disagree with social programs that receive funding from the government. For example, in working at a community center I recently had the opportunity to see the "Fishes and Loaves/Meals on Wheels" program in action. This senior citizen serving non-profit organization's motto is "no senior will go hungry." I completely agree that seniors should not go to bed hungry, but I disagree with the federal government taking responsibility for them all. Why? Because of their source of funding! Government grants that fund 1/3 of the Meals on Wheels program (as published on their website www.moaa.org) and large portions of the vast majority of non-profit organizations comes from taxes, paid by you and me of course. In my mind that means money I am forced to pay (because I will go to jail, etc if I don't pay taxes) goes to feed needy seniors, the homeless, the diseased or others. That means I don't have a choice about serving someone, there is no internal belief or desire to serve this particular person that is receiving a meal at this moment, to give shelter to a particular family, to help find a cure for a particular disease or to help with any other cause because I have no say in exactly where my tax money goes. I am forced to be "charitable" to a cause that I may or may not have empathy for. My right to choose who I serve is essentially taken away from me.

I'm not saying the whole Meals on Wheels program is bad, after all there are only 3 paid employees for the entire city they serve and the rest of the work is done by volunteers, plus the vast majority of the funds come through donations and small fees. It's just the 1/3 that really irks me. By depending so heavily on government funds the responsibility and accountability for our seniors is shifted from the family and local communities of individual seniors to a big government disconnected with the individuals and with those who should be taking care of them. It gives us an easy way out of fulfilling our duty as human beings to personally care for those in need around us.

Therefore what? I am responsible and you are responsible for taking care of the individuals who are in need around us or for the causes that we have empathy for. By allowing the government to take our taxes and make the decision for us of where that money goes we shirk our responsibility. I believe that the proper way to care for those needs would be social programs that are run by non-government organizations (private businesses, non-profits without government grants, etc), or in other words, leave it in the hands of the public. "But could that really work?" a skeptical friend recently asked me, "don't we need those programs?" I agree that it would be extremely difficult to make it work, but we as a people have the goodness within us to take care of those in need if we choose to. If we were not required to pay a large amount of taxes we would have the extra money needed to donate to causes or personally help individuals around us. So where do we start? I think it has to start with electing government officials who would back away from big government and return responsibility and accountability to those who rightfully own it; to me and to you.

Writing Sample

I was recently applying for a job that required a "writing sample." The following is what I wrote. It is a little bit longer than I will normally post but I thought it turned out well and goes along with my last post so I wanted to share it.

Even though I am just finishing up my college career, I do not have any recent papers that I feel would make a good writing sample for this application requirement. Fortunately, I enjoy writing. Being able to say honestly that I enjoy the act of writing is a rather new realization to me. As a youth and even into college I have always done well on my writing assignments but I always assumed that was just because I put in the effort to write how I thought the teacher wanted the paper to be. I thought that I disliked writing, mostly because it wasn’t “cool” to like writing and I did not recognize that keeping a journal, e-mailing, and chatting online were all forms of written expression that I did enjoy and that they were helping me to develop writing skills. Of course I am not writing about this to brag that I am such a great writer, but to demonstrate that (a) life is made up of purposeful actions and (b) all human actions are the result of decision based on calculations, whether conscious or not, to make one happy. Writing and I will serve as the example.

Action is the employment of means to attain an end. As human beings it is impossible for us not to act. Even doing nothing or standing by idly is a form of action because it changes events; it attains an end. According to economist and philosopher Ludwig von Mises, by acting, man is choosing and determining his own destiny. Unlike animals, by living in a state in which man is capable of desiring a better state of affairs, can imagine a better state of affairs, and believes he can

attain a better state of affairs, his action is purposeful. In all actions his purpose is to attain that desired better state of affairs. For example, in writing papers that I supposedly did not enjoy writing you might wonder why I would put in the effort to write it. As I think about it now I realize that I wrote then because I thought that getting a good grade would make my parents proud of me, make my teachers like me, and of course eventually help me get into a good college, which I was told would someday lead to a good job, etc, all of which I believed would make me happy. If did not write the paper then my state of affair would not be satisfactory because of the poor grade and the displeasure it would cause in other people, but I knew that if I acted, if I wrote and wrote well, then my state of affairs would improve.

Admittedly, there was some level of personal satisfaction of doing well, but at the same time I still claimed to dislike writing. The grumbling and complaining to family and friends about writing papers was fairly routine. What was the purpose of the grumbling? To make my peers like me of course. I assumed that my state of affairs would not be satisfactory if I claimed to like writing because the majority of my peers claimed to dislike writing and I would therefore be an outcast. However, by claiming to dislike writing I believed that my state of affairs would improve as my peers accepted me.

The transition from claiming to dislike writing to openly acknowledging that I love to write has been slow. I believe that it developed gradually as I began writing lengthy e-mails in a long distance relationship using the written word as a form of expression for my personal beliefs and opinions. Once that person, who is now my spouse, began to commend me for my writing ability I was able to start accepting that it would not damage my state of affairs to acknowledge that it was not just effort to please others but that I am a good writer as well. Later his encouragement allowed me to acknowledge that I am not just a good writer but that I enjoy doing it too. However, that realization could not come until my belief about what would lead to a satisfactory state of affairs was changed.

It is necessary to point out that even though all of my actions were based on calculations to improve my state of affairs, or in other words, to make me happy, that does not mean that my calculations were necessarily correct. As it turns out, I may have been much happier had I acknowledged openly as a youth that I enjoyed writing, but I did not believe that that would make me happy. Unfortunately, there are many people today, especially the youth who do not realize that their calculations for happiness are incorrect. They seek happiness by doing what others tell them will make them happy instead of listening to themselves. In working for Adelante Chicas it would be my goal to help the girls in the program to look inside and find their true happiness. Life is made up of the actions that we perform everyday. All actions are based on calculations to make us happy; we just have to find the right calculation.

Von Mises, L. (1949). Human Action: A Treatise on Economics. Yale University Press.

Because It Makes Me Happy

Do you ever wonder why you choose one thing over another whether to buy, say, do, or any other action? Why do I buy a certain pair of jeans over another? Why do I speak kind words to one person but gossip about the next? Why do I eat ice-cream one day but not the next (assuming I didn't just eat it all and not buy more...)? A couple of years ago, I was contemplating this very idea and I came to the conclusion that whether consciously or not we always choose what we think will make us happy. For example, I choose the jeans that make me happy whether my standard of happiness is comfort or a certain look that I think other people will like and consequently will make others think well of me and thereby make me happy.

This is not to say that all calculations of happiness are correct or true. If I speak kindly to one person, it may be because I truly want to be nice, or it may be that I think being kind to this particular person will put me in a better position for personal advancement (talking to a boss, etc.) and thereby make me happy. Or, I may think that talking bad about someone else will somehow make me feel better about myself and thereby be happy, but reality is, that never really works. It is a false calculation of happiness that leads to an erroneous decision. If I believe an erroneous calculation of choices to make me happy then I have been deceived...and that is very easy to do.

So why am I writing about what makes me happy or not? I am proud to say that a highly influential Austrian economist came to the same conclusion as I did about making choices based on happiness, though he says it in slightly different terms. He also said that, believe it or not, whether I choose to buy one pair of jeans or another (because it makes me happy) has at least in a small way an effect on how much money I will be required to pay for a gallon of milk at the grocery store. That will be the topic of my next post. Therefore what? For now, consider this question, will what I am about to say, buy, or do or any other action I am about to perform really make me happy or am I just being deceived?