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| MONEY AND MORALS
Patricia O'Toole explores the tension between personal gain and public responsibility. August 19, 1998 |
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NewsHour Backgrounders
August 12, 1998
Patricia O'Toole discusses her book "Money and Morals in America."
August 5, 1998
Author Stephen Carter discusses manners and morals in a democratic society.
Online Forum
How has philanthropy changed?
December 30, 1997
Seattle's high-tech millionaires are transforming philanthropy.
Browse the NewsHour's coverage of welfare.
Outside Links
The Center for the Study of Philanthropy.
Mixing money and morals may seem as hopeless as mixing water and oil. But according to writer Patricia O'Toole, Americans have constantly struggled to balance these two priorities, juggling self-sufficiency, philanthropy, profit and social responsibility.
In her new book "Money and Morals in America," O'Toole focuses on well-known Americans -- Benjamin Franklin, Henry David Thoreau, Andrew Carnegie, Whitney Young Jr.-- to show how the country has handled the tensions of "wealth versus commonwealth."
According to O'Toole, these tensions have not yet been resolved. To Americans, accumulating wealth is good, but giving it away is even better. And although Americans may volunteer and donate more than any other people in the world, "if we didn't like what kind of poor they were, we packed them off to the next town," O'Toole said in a recent dialogue with David Gergen.
The debate between money and morals continues to underscore many of the issues in the news today. For instance, is welfare a hand up or a handout? Is it America's responsibility to assist developing nations or bail out another country's economic crisis? Are we more impressed by a person's wealth than their community service?
What do you think? How well does money mix with morality in America? Below, Patricia O'Toole's answers to your questions.
T. Bennett Finley of Saskatoon, Canada asks:
Why does U.S. society keep looking down their noses (collectively) at people who have to accept welfare? Is there no appreciation of the position in which many of these people find themselves?
Patricia O'Toole responds:
Mr. Finley, your question is one I have asked myself many times. I think the answer is rooted in the intensely individualistic rhetoric of U.S. culture. As a people we worship the self-made man even though we know there is no such thing (all humans being products of a web of associations). We continue to thrill to stories of the poor boy who triumphed over the odds and became a big success. Good for him, I say. But he's 1 in 100 and we don't give a thought to the 99 who didn't escape poverty. My sense is that we love the conquering underdog story because it allows us to imagine that all the poor can succeed if only they work hard enough--and that thought leads in turn to the suspicion that poor adults are poor because they're insufficiently diligent.
Back to the top....
Judith Smullen of Bethlehem, PA asks:
Rather than WHETHER accumulating wealth is moral, shouldn't the question be HOW one accumulates wealth? Giving it away after the fact is great, but does doing so balance any score of human and environmental suffering and loss? It seems to me that America's problem has been the unethical and immoral (if not actually illegal) accumulation of wealth followed by the guilt or regret...
Patricia O'Toole responds:
Ms. Smullen, to me, the WHETHER and the HOW are both important. The fact is, most wealthy people accumulate their wealth by legitimate means--through work, inheritance or investments. While your point about human and environmental suffering is well taken, the deeper problem in my view is caused by a factor which is not moral, immoral, or amoral: wealth begets wealth, and that seriously handicaps those without wealth. The stock market went up more than 20% a year in 1995, 1996 and 1997, leaving the average investor with a portfolio about twice as large on December 31, 1997 as it was on January 1, 1995. The poor, having income but little if any wealth, had no such luck. So the gap between rich and poor has widened dramatically.
What can we do about this? I say, let's all overtip. Double the pay of our cleaning ladies. (Think of the bargaining power this will give them in the other houses where they work.) Become passionate advocates for the concept of the living wage as a replacement to old notions of competitive wages (which may or may not provide a decent standard of living) and the minimum wage (which falls indecently short of decent). Thirty years ago, a full-time minimum-wage worker earned enough to support a household of three at a level 11% above the poverty line. Today that same household would be 18% below the line.
We also need to recommit to the fight against race and gender discrimination in employment. African-Americans, Latinos and women make up a disproportionate share of those at the bottom, and women who work full-time still make only 80% as much as their male counterparts. Paying the working poor a living wage and closing the gap between men's and women's wages would go a long way toward reducing poverty.
Robert Ladd of Hillsborough, NC asks:
It is no doubt true that Americans volunteer and donate more than any other people in the world, and that is a good thing. It shows that many Americans have altruistic impulses. But it seems to me that is only one side of the story.
Americans consume far more than our share of the world's resources. Our way of life causes ecological harm. Our life style could not be adopted by the rest of the world because of the lack of available resources and environmental destruction that would result.
So it seems clear that to provide moral leadership, we must learn a new way to live that is ecologically sound and sustainable for the planet as a whole. Any comments on this?
Patricia O'Toole responds:
Mr. Ladd, you make a wonderful point that can't be made often enough. Thank you.
Suzanne O'Keeffe of Vancouver, Canada asks:
Two questions:
1) Does the U.S. really volunteer and donate more money than Canadians per capita? The perception up here is quite different.
2) How do we determine the "common good" or encourage efforts to enhance it without encouraging know-it-all paternalism?
Patricia O'Toole responds:
Ms. O'Keeffe, in answer to your first question, I based my comment on information from a recent report by a major research organization specializing in nonprofit and volunteer activities in the United States. If you have Canadian statistics, I would be very happy to see them.
Regarding your second question, on avoiding know-it-all paternalism as we define the common good and put it into practice, my sense is that unless such efforts are very, very broad-based, they won't result in any noticeable improvement. For those who like to think along these lines, here is a wonderful question, from The Witch of Exmoor by Margaret Drabble: What kind of society would you design if you couldn't know in advance what place you'd have in it?
Roy Gathercoal of Newberg, OR asks:
...we have seen a much higher media profile of philanthropists in recent decades, and a much more sophisticated (money-savvy) approach to philanthropy. (What is the difference between advertising and a sponsor's spot on Public TV?)
Given these factors, where do we draw the line between philanthropy and savvy public relations? And when this line gets blurred, do we need to redefine philanthropy?
(Ms. O'Toole: Janet Billups of Portland OR wanted to know if you could name any philanthropists who participated in charitable deeds-- volunteering time and energies-- rather than simply writing checks. Would you touch on this in your answer to Mr. Gathercoal?)
Patricia O'Toole responds:
Mr. Gathercoal, I share your skepticism of the recent spate of media attention to philanthropists. In particular I worry that the rash of stories of big benefactions will lull Americans into believing that they need not be concerned about the people in the bottom economic strata because the people at the top will take care of them. But the problems require much broader solutions that philanthropy alone can provide. (You'll find a few of my suggested approaches above, in my answer to Ms. Smullen.)
I don't have an informed response to your question about the difference between advertising and sponsors' spots on public TV.
Philanthropy, like everything else worth doing, is in constant need of redefinition and refinement. (And to Janet Billups of Portland, OR, who asked if I knew of philanthropists who give time and energy to causes rather than simply writing cheques, I reply that I'm disinclined to criticize donors for what they don't do. In my experience, most people are thoughtful about their giving, and they give in ways that they believe will maximize their gifts. I see nothing nefarious, for example, in computer companies' gifts of computers to schools. Computers are what they have to give. If they chose to give food instead, the higher expense to them would undoubtedly shrink the size of their contribution. And most substantial gifts are preceded by a great deal of very thoughtful planning requiring hours if not days and weeks of the donor's involvement. Just because the philanthropist is not out there pounding nails or ladling out soup doesn't mean that he or she is merely writing a cheque.)
As in other areas, the best philanthropic leaders are constantly looking for more effective ways to do their work. I am impressed by the energy and imagination I see in the philanthropic world, and I hope that the growing public interest in philanthropy will lead to a civic version of the Great Awakening--a revival of concern for the common good and a recognition that Martin Luther King, Jr. was right when he said that other-preservation, not self-preservation, is the first law of life. Like it or not, all life is connected
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