The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism: Who Really Cares, by Professor Arthur Brooks. Brooks, who confesses that he is a long-time liberal, purports to be an in depth analysis of charitable giving in the US. The picture that emerges from his statistical analysis of existing and some new national tax data, surveys, and interviews is not pretty for progressives. Bluntly, Brooks’ findings are that conservatives give more – a lot more – than liberals. He found that the best predictors of contributing to charity, volunteering, working in political campaigns - even giving blood - are: a conservative outlook and political beliefs, belonging to a church, frequent church attendance, having a strong family, earned income as opposed to inherited income or welfare, and belief that self-reliance and individuals, not government, are the best solution to society’s ills.
Take two people for example. In Brooks' analysis, one goes to church once or twice a week, rejects the idea that government should help equalize incomes through taxes or redistribution, votes Republican and has a large family. The other is secular and strongly supports the separation of church and state, supports taxes on corporations and estates, votes Democratic and is single. Brooks says that, just using these variables, the data predict that the first person will be about twice as likely as the second to give money to charities in a given year, and will donate more than 100 times as much money per year – including to non-religious causes. And if the first person is working poor or blue collar lower middle class, he/she will give even more on a percentage basis.
Brooks uses tax returns, national surveys, analysis of non-profit reports, and interviews to compile his data. His definition of giving includes all donations – political, charitable, blood drives, and volunteering. He tries to be meticulous about defining conservative and liberal, using voting patterns and national survey research data, although this is obviously a somewhat subjective process. His findings are hard to argue with: even when contributions to churches and religious organizations are taken out of his data, conservatives still give a higher percentage of their income and volunteer more of their time than liberals. The more religious the conservative is or the more secular the liberal is, the greater the difference. And race and gender do not change the findings.
As a social scientist myself, I have utilized national data sets and surveys similar to those that Brooks uses and I have analyzed them with SPSS, similar to the prgramming that he used for this book, so I am familiar with the methodology. I find no flaws in his work. I do admit that it is possible to argue with his definitions of liberal and conservative, and what is charity and what is not, but I don't think that changing his definitions on the margins - and it would have to be on the margins, given how thoroughly he has grounded them - would impact his outputs substantially.
Brooks, currently on the faculty Syracuse University, has a strong reputation in tracking trends. He publishes frequently in national newspapers and magazines, especially the Wall Street Journal, which may be problematic. He includes data tables in the book and clearly references the data sets he uses so the reader can judge his conclusions and other academics can replicate his work.
In response to Brooks' book liberals need to ask themselves three questions:
1. Is he correct? This will require funding a social scientist to critique his methodology and rerun his data, to try to replicate the outcomes.
2. Assuming he is correct, will this characteristic ultimately condemn liberal policies and infrastructure to secondary status in the US? This will require a deeper anlaysis of the degree to which any disparity between liberal and conservative giving and volunteering impacts the growth of each camp's infrastructure.
3. Why is this the case and how do we change it?
Brooks’ answer to the third question is complex, but it boils down to two major points: (1) conservatives are more often raised in religious homes where tithing and/or giving are embedded in the family culture awhich is passed on to the children as an obligation, and (2) liberals believe that charity would not be needed if the government did its job of redistributing income and caring for the neediest, so liberals feel charity is not necessary and actually could be counterproductive - an attitude which Brooks' claims carries over to political giving.
Brooks spends many pages on this last distinction between conservatives and liberals and even brings in the difference in thinking and history between Europe (which has a very low giving rate) and the US. I found some of his reasoning somewhat thin; he seemed to be building analytic castles on foundations that were a bit sandy. But much of it did make sense, and he backed it up with both interviews and data analysis.
As to the second half of the last question, he is vague. He calls upon liberals “to stand up for charity” – not very useful. So what should the progressive response be? What should we do to match the conservatives in giving and volunteering?. In the long run, Brooks’ predictors of religion, conservatism, and earned income do not have to matter. People give for many reasons (although he found that tax deductions is not one of them). What matters is the attitude and worldview that giving is an obligation for all of us, not because it makes us feel better (it does), but because it builds strong communities beyond the immediate help.
Easier said than done, but a book like this one is a great start. Progressives will need a strong philanthropic worldview if they are going to create the communications infrastructure they will to win America’s hearts and minds in the long term . Unless progressives can match conservatives in donations and volunteer time, Progressives may never be able to move the country from a 50-50 split electorate to a more liberal one. This will be critical when (if?) there is no war to hang on conservatives at election time. A good place to start would be an organization like the Commonweal Institute pulling together major progressive donors and foundations and develop strategy for overcoming the giving gap.