How Much Should We Give?
On Hedonism Part 2
From Corinthians 9:7, Paul says “Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.”
This verse is pretty easy to interpret, in my opinion. God loves those who give. And you should give according to how much your heart tells you to give, not because you feel peer pressured or because there is a gun to your head.
I think this verse is exemplary for one of the limitations with the Bible as a guide for morality. The Bible gives loose guidelines for how to behave. Then, it is on the individual to determine what is right based on their own interpretation of the Word.
One of my clients said that the way I live, being without God, is bad because it means my morality is subjective. Her morality, because it comes from the Word of God, is objective. However, upon reading this quote from Paul it feels clear to me that the Bible’s moral code is also subjective. What is in my heart to give will be different from yours. Shoot, what is in my heart to give is going to be different from day to day or moment to moment, even if I did try to follow the truest interpretation of the Bible. It is not objective at all.
Humans don’t do well with subjectivity. I recently had several people argue about what color a rug I put in my gym is (it is obviously a greyish lavender.) Instead, humans do well with clear guidelines for how to behave.
Driving is a good example. Dumb people drive around in metal cannisters at many times walking speed, and when they’re sober, they do a pretty good job of not killing themselves or others. (Yes, accidents do happen. But, for the volume of driving we do, they are rare.) This is because the rules of the road are very clear. When there is a car accident, it is usually caused by one or all parties not following the rules. And we can easily determine who is at fault by who didn’t follow the rules. The rules of the road allow us to determine right and wrong.
People drive in remarkably similar ways despite operating wildly different machinery because they all follow the same rules of the road. But people spend and give money in remarkably different ways, even when they all read the same book on morality.
We simply do not have clear guidelines on how much of our earnings to spend on ourselves and how much to give to others. We are often impressed when wealthy people give enormous amounts of money to charitable causes. However, despite their charitable giving, it hardly ever causes a dent in their net worth (Mackenzie Bezos’ net worth continues to rise). Also, many uber rich individuals hardly pay anything in taxes and use their charitable giving to decrease their tax liability.
This Fortune article applauds mega millionaire Bill Perkins for stating that he gave $16,000 to 30 or 40 people in a year. However, he is also quoted as having a $22.5 million dollar art collection. That means that that year’s charitable giving, at the upper end of his estimate, was only 2.8% of the value of his art collection. Which I would hardly call a sacrifice.
Perkins states that his money philosophy is “that money is a tool to drive your fulfillment, and that’s it.” If his fulfillment was to create a better world, invest in world changing technology, and improve the healthcare system in the United States, I would also applaud him as emphatically as Fortune does in their piece on him. However, his plans to “Die with Zero” (the actual name of his book) seem more to revolve around longevity treatments for himself, playing poker, and buying more expensive art.
Other billionaires have adopted a different model. The Giving Pledge is a pact by many billionaires that states that they will give away their money to charity when they die. The problem with this model is that many of the people on the list, like Larry Ellison, own superyachts, multimillion dollar homes, and private jets. So, this pledge sounds to me that they their goal is to live hedonically upon their fortunes and then serve the remainder to the masses when they die. Which doesn’t sound good either.
Then, on the other end of the spectrum there is Chuck Feeney, founder of Duty Free Shoppers, the duty-free stores in the airports you’ve probably seen. Feeney gave away his multi-billion-dollar fortune to charity while he was still living. All he had left was enough for he and his wife to live in a small two-bedroom apartment.
Chuck Feeney’s contribution led to personal sacrifice. He ended his life, not as some billionaire with a private island, but as a normal person living a normal life. I think if you were to ask him, it did not lead to suffering. He did not die hungry. He actually seemed incredibly happy to donate his fortune.
What Chuck Feeney did was an incredible amount of giving. That said, there is an upper limit to giving. I knew of a man who gave too much. At the end of his life, his young adult children had to drain their bank accounts to pay his medical bills because, despite amassing fortunes along the way, his generosity caused him to gift it to those around him frivolously. And as much as those around him appreciated his sacrifices for them, if we all lived this way, future generations would suffer from such kindness. From his story, I’ve determined that if you are capable and able-bodied person, you should not give so much so that you must rely on others just to survive.
However, if we all lived as Chuck Feeney, I feel that future generations would thrive. They don’t need to be handed vast fortunes upon our death in our wills. What they need is for us to give while we can still have a say in how that giving will be directed. To ensure that the causes being given to are held to account to help those we were expecting the gifts to be for.
So, from these extremes, I have created a guide for myself:
Give so much of what you earn from this world so that you can live modestly, but not so much that you are reliant on others.
modesty noun · mod·es·ty · ˈmä-də-stē
the quality of being relatively moderate, limited, or small in amount; lack of excess or extravagance.
Unfortunately, I have not totally solved for the subjectivity problem of the Bible. The word ‘modest’ is subjective. Modest to me as a broke, recently married 29-year-old is different than someone flying around on a private jet. And it will also probably be different than myself in the future as I continue to make more money.
After writing that guide, I polled some people I know about what a modest home and a modest car looked like to them. All the answers were different. But they did have one thing in common: the homes and the cars they chose were smaller and less expensive than they currently have.
It’s easy for me to criticize wealthy people while I’m still relatively poor. But I don’t plan on staying this way forever (please subscribe.) What will happen to my lifestyle as I make more money? Will I too adopt the same levels of greed that I condemn? Or will I live far within my means and sacrifice fortune for the betterment of humanity like Chuck Feeney?
I can only hope that the future, wealthier me, can look at himself in the mirror and be convinced that he is living a life within the limits of his definition of modesty, and not at the limits of his wealth.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on my framework for giving. If you agree or disagree, please let me know in the comments below.