The most fashionable Christmas present this year is a goat. Not for oneself, of course, but for some poor family in Africa or India. The giving of a goat is advertised everywhere. As an alternative, one is encouraged to give a toilet. The true sound of Christmas is no longer a tinkling sleigh bell but a distant bleating or a resounding flush.
We hear a lot about charitable giving at Christmas and it is tempting to think we are generous people, forever digging into our pockets to help those less fortunate. Viewers of Strictly Come Dancing have had the satisfaction when voting for Darren Gough, Zoe Ball or Colin Jackson of knowing that some of the inflated cost of the phone call is going to Children In Need. The BBC annually tells us how generous and wonderful we are for supporting its favoured charity.
The truth is that we give a fraction of what the Victorians donated. According to a survey in 1895, middle-class people gave 10 per cent of their income to charity. And what do we give? Last year it was £8.2bn - well under one per cent of our income.
(The above is an excerpt from an article I wrote for The First Post website. The full article is here. The article concludes with the following:)
We are right to be careful about charitable giving. The Victorians were very thoughtful about it. We should be both more generous and more selective. There is little point helping an NHS hospital to buy a new operating theatre if it is going to stand idle for long periods of time because the hospital trust is in deficit and has to save money.
One key to good giving these days, is to choose those charities which have as little as possible to do with government. My own personal dream is to be involved in creating a new charitable clinic or hospital wholly outside governmental control. In the meantime, charities must learn to be careful what they do with my money, or the goat will get it this Christmas.
Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in Charity
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Having received a number of goats this year (in place of Christmas cards) from a number of friends, I have to say I'd prefer to get the cards; and have them give a goat on their own watch.
I think it's a real shame people only see charity as being for "foreign" people today. When anything needs doing in this country it is to Government people turn...
Posted by: Rory at December 21, 2005 11:38 PM
One very easy way is to download Firefox or sign up for Adsense. The money raised will be used to send Sortapundit to Outer Mongolia to the great benefit of all.
Except perhaps the Mongolians, of course.
Posted by: Tim Worstall at December 22, 2005 12:38 PM
This post is disingenuous at best.
Victorian middle classes paid much lower taxes and the state provided much less to citizens - or subjects as they were then. The disadvantaged suffered horrible conditions during their lives which were short and brutish. That wages were very low is illustrated by the high numbers of servants in middle class households.
To bemoan the welfare state's inefficiencies is fair enough but to promote Victorian society as an appropriate alternative is daft. Well perhaps some people think child labour, including prostitution, is a good thing.
Mainstream political parties differ only over a few percentage points of GDP as state spending. None wants to dismantle any of the major areas of expenditure, including the really lunatic such as the supposed independent nuclear deterrent.
Posted by: Sean Flyte at December 23, 2005 06:35 PM
Mainstream political parties differ only over a few percentage points of GDP as state spending. None wants to dismantle any of the major areas of expenditure, including the really lunatic such as the supposed independent nuclear deterrent.
I find it strange you adduce the current political consensus to support the merits of state welfare spending, when at the same time you would disregard that consensus when it comes to the merits of the nuclear deterrent.
Posted by: Tim at December 24, 2005 10:46 AM
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It would be interesting to know the figures as a percentage of disposable income - that it to say: is the fall caused by increased taxation?
Posted by: Bishop Hill at December 21, 2005 10:14 PM