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In my experience it is the opposite. Americans give about 3x as much per capita to charity as Germans, for example. In continental Europe generally you will a

In my experience it is the opposite. Americans give about 3x as much per capita to charity as Germans, for example. In continental Europe generally you will also see strong anti-immigrant and anti-minority sentiments expressed in casual, middle class society that I haven’t seen to anywhere near the same degree in the U.S.

forgetfreeman 3y ago
The real pisser: the overwhelming majority of those "charities" are either fundamentalist religious organizations with deeply troubling agendas or thinly camouflaged tax shelters for the obscenely wealthy. Ain't that a kick in the head?
- deleted 3y ago
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rfrey 3y ago
A huge fraction of that charity is donations to the church one is a member of, much of which money goes to church salaries, property maintenance, etc. If we included country club dues and gym memberships in the German charity numbers, perhaps the "charitable giving" numbers would be closer.
- cameldrv 3y ago
  Donations to religious organizations were about 28% of donations in the U.S. If you excluded all of the charitable donations to churches, the U.S. numbers would still be more than twice as much as Germany. Also, while a large part of the religious donations go to the operation of the church, churches do a lot of other charitable activities such as food pantries, shelters, disaster relief, education, etc. Having lived in both places, charity is simply much more of a part of the culture in the U.S. I think the general feeling in Germany was that taking care of people in trouble was the job of the government and that they paid their taxes and that doing more was not necessary.
  - hakfoo 3y ago
    That's definitely a case that can be argued. Social problems often make more sense to attack at a governmental level. When you have a patchwork of different charitable initiatives, often regionally bounded, they can easily fall victim to tunnel vision. You end up with solutions like "we solved the poor care metrics in Facility A by shipping the worst cases to Facility B" and then nobody's checking if Facility B is actually worse. Individual charity also tends to have the problem of awkward consumer choices. well-marketed and mediagenic causes out-raise less appetizing ones that might produce more impact for the same investment. Getting this information into the hands of a few professional analysts and budgeters may be easier than trying to run a broad PR campaign.

forgetfreeman 3y ago

The real pisser: the overwhelming majority of those "charities" are either fundamentalist religious organizations with deeply troubling agendas or thinly camouflaged tax shelters for the obscenely wealthy. Ain't that a kick in the head?

deleted 3y ago
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rfrey 3y ago

A huge fraction of that charity is donations to the church one is a member of, much of which money goes to church salaries, property maintenance, etc. If we included country club dues and gym memberships in the German charity numbers, perhaps the "charitable giving" numbers would be closer.

cameldrv 3y ago
Donations to religious organizations were about 28% of donations in the U.S. If you excluded all of the charitable donations to churches, the U.S. numbers would still be more than twice as much as Germany. Also, while a large part of the religious donations go to the operation of the church, churches do a lot of other charitable activities such as food pantries, shelters, disaster relief, education, etc. Having lived in both places, charity is simply much more of a part of the culture in the U.S. I think the general feeling in Germany was that taking care of people in trouble was the job of the government and that they paid their taxes and that doing more was not necessary.
- hakfoo 3y ago
  That's definitely a case that can be argued. Social problems often make more sense to attack at a governmental level. When you have a patchwork of different charitable initiatives, often regionally bounded, they can easily fall victim to tunnel vision. You end up with solutions like "we solved the poor care metrics in Facility A by shipping the worst cases to Facility B" and then nobody's checking if Facility B is actually worse. Individual charity also tends to have the problem of awkward consumer choices. well-marketed and mediagenic causes out-raise less appetizing ones that might produce more impact for the same investment. Getting this information into the hands of a few professional analysts and budgeters may be easier than trying to run a broad PR campaign.