Charity Index

A dream I experienced lead me to think about economic, cultural and political systems in terms of shared dreams. The participants in a system must believe in the efficacy of it if it is to survive in the long term. How else can one explain the emergence of vastly different forms of economic, cultural and political systems in modern times.

The members of the society must share a common set of values and goals in order to perpetuate the system. Systems do of course have their own inertia which means that they might prevail when the masses suspect they should fail. Systems may also succeed even when the majority of participants aren't happy with the setup. However, it is possible to still state that members of one society hold different beiefs to another and this gives rise to different systems.

In modern times I see this essentially as a tradeoff between individual success and group success. The competing dream visions are (i) anyone can succeed (but not all will) (ii) we all can succeed (or fail) together. Proponents of the first vision would rationalise the proposition so that group success comes from the combined success of the individuals. This however is a rationaisation - the dream is based on individual success.

The cult of the individual where the individual is the brand is just one further step in the fragmentation of western society. I say "western" rather than "capitalist" because I am not concerned with labeling the "society" but with the core feelings of the indiviuals within that society. The "you too can succeed like me" meme is repeated in all spheres across all walks of life. It is a very inspirational message yet it does lead to individuals striving for success in what might be considered to be qustionable endeavours.

The individual aims to achieve status on many levels all of which are indicators of wealth: car driven, suburb lived in, size of house, quality of clothing and accessories, social circle etc. All of these things are indicators of wealth and are used as signifiers by individuals. The individual therefore gains status through these secondary indicators: the primary indicator being the number of digits to the left of the decimal point in their bank account.

Status is not measured so much by the contribution an individual makes to the local community, to their own family or even to others outside their immediate sphere. The are of course awards granted to brave and generous citizens but in a sense the recognition gained from these awards is fleeting and selective. Business and political leaders are much more likely to be recognised for their achivements even though they are motivated by power and greed. These leaders will be held up as examples to youngsters because they represent success.

Anyway, so what? This is all old news. Regurgitated socialist sociology. The title of this essay is Charity Index. What has that got to do with all of this?

One is able to get a quick objective measure of a society and of an individual by observing how charitable it is. It should be possible to come up with an index which can be used to measure how generous an entity is and this can then be used to rank the enitities. It is thought that this objective measure could be used as a further outward indicator which may be used for status.
Traditionally, you could argue that the charitable have not advertised their willingness to offer assitance as that is counter to the act of giving. ie. the benefit gained by adertising one's generosity countered the generous act. This way of thinking kept charity in the dark. It didn't encourage people to be charitable. The only motivation for giving to charity would be an inner satisfcatory and contentment gained from giving. It was not possible to advertise this through secondary indicators.

Perhaps it is possible that the use of an indicator of degree of charity might be used by individuals to make a statement. Instead of indicating status by saying "I drive CarX to GymY wearing ClothingZ with friends T, D and H" one might way "I have a charity index of A". The western world is currently very prosperous and there should be more than enough to go around. In these times it might well become advantageous to show off one's charitable spirit.

OK how do we measure the charity index?

According to one definition

In its traditional legal meaning, the word "charity" encompasses religion,
education, assistance to the government, promotion of health, relief of poverty
or distress and other purposes that benefit the community.

Another definition is

An activity or gift that benefits the public at large.

The distinction I would like to draw from this is the difference between benefitting oneself and others that are not related.

In the case of governments you need to look at how they spend consolidated revenue. One interpretation would just include foreign aid. A looser interpretation could include health, education, welfare and foreign aid. The decision is arbitrary. It would be easy to argue that spending money on education is selfish because it promotes the welfare of the country. You could also arge that military spending goes on rebuilding other countries or that spending on space benefits all of mankind. However, this essay chooses to consider military, space, transport etc as selfish expenditure and health, education, welfare and foreign aid as benefiting others.

The government formula would look like:

charity = (health + education + welfare + foreign aid) / gross revenue * 100

In the case of individuals we need to look at (i) direct spending on others who are unrealted to you and (ii) hours spent doing charitable acts.

The individual formula would look like:

charity = ((donations + (charitable work hours * average income per hour)) /
income * 100) + government score

Some features can be noted from this:1. The gross amount doesn't count. It's all relative.2. Individuals who are taxed more highly (dependent on state taxation system or income band) will be rewarded according to how generous their governments are.3. A rich persons time doing charitable things is scored more highly initially but this is cancelled by the fact that it is relevant to the income of the individual.

Predicted outcomes

Northern European countries will probably score quite well in this.

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