The Wash Post profiled a hedge fund programmer who donates almost all of his salary to a foundation that works to save kids from malaria. Dylan Matthews clearly thinks that this is pretty noble. There’s a lot of interesting information in the article about the most effective ways to give to charity, but I’ll deal with that later. Let’s just talk about the dude for a moment.
David Brooks thinks that this hedge fund programmer is misguided. If the dude is really consumed by the need to help kids in Africa, then he should get on an airplane and do it.
After I graduated from college, I lived at home for a year to save up money before I moved out. I took the bus at the corner every morning to the city for my entry level publishing job, which paid $15,500 per year. Three stops down, a former high school classmate got on the bus with me. He worked at a hedge fund in the city and made six times my salary. He still lived at home, too. We weren’t really friends when we were in high school, but we became very close after a year’s worth of bus trips together. We did the NYT crossword puzzle together and chatted about life.
I gave him lots of shit about his job. I was in full commie mode back then and considered his job morally bankrupt. But the truth was, the guy was a much better person than I was. He volunteered at a soup kitchen every week and spent his weekends learning more about his real passion in life — jazz. After 20 years of frugal living, he quit Wall Street and opened up his own jazz recording label. He supports struggling artists and his label has won many awards. He’s actually very successful. I keep tabs on his many triumphs on Facebook.
For most people, a job is a means to an end. It’s the means for providing your family with a roof and a meal. Few people actually get to pursue a job that is both noble and fulfilling. If you have the unique skills to make a lot of money, why not use that money for a noble end?
Apt. 11d 
Warren Buffet has said something along those lines, that what he’s good at is making money (which, he would probably say, is about participating in and increasing the efficiency of our economic system). So, he says, it makes sense for him to do that, and leave the malaria cure to others, whoa re good at that.
I think sending a hedge-fund manager off to volunteer in a school in Africa is, on the whole, stupid (though there might be a special person who can do both, most of us have particular skills). Millions of overlapping charities that allow a particular person an opportunity to “help” often actually do less good.
You have to be careful not to get carried away by the money as an end in itself. It’s very easy to have that happen, because money, and the trappings of money become the measure of success in the environment.
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Oh, I clicked through on your link. Great story. And, I wouldn’t have predicted that the wall streeter turned jazz patron would be Asian-American.
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A few years after graduating from college, I had a big discussion about this with a college friend. He had been working at an inner-city school, but had been accepted at a top flight B-school. His question was whether you can do more good in the world by volunteering full-time or by making boatloads of money and then paying people (more people than just you if you chose to do the work) to volunteer. It’s a really good question, and I think I would have to agree with my friend who ultimately decided to go to b-school. I’ve lost touch with him since then, but I would love to follow up and see if he actually followed through on his intentions.
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The problem, of course, is most people don’t follow through on the intention. Money and the things it can buy becomes a part of your life, and the people who are around you are buying bigger houses, and taking bigger vacations, and you don’t live frugally enough to stop working at 47 and start your recording label. Family plays a big role, family, and the things you want to get them, and time, and the money that needs to replace it. All of that means you don’t really follow the path of spending your money to replace the personal contribution.
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I’m very skeptical. Lots of people have gone to Africa over the past couple centuries to “help” the benighted savages there, and it’s not clear to me that they have done much good. You might do more good by opening a factory there and hiring people, although two caveats apply: first, self-righteous l20-somethings in the U.S. will consider you an oppressor (maybe they’re right) and, second, you will have to pay immense amounts in bribes and kickbacks to corrupt and oppressive local officials, so maybe you aren’t actually helping the ordinary people, net.
For myself, I prefer to confine my charity to organizations closer to home. Of course, that means that most of them (e.g., the Central Park Conservancy, the New York Public Library) serve rich people, but at least I am not oppressing anyone or putting money in dictators’ pockets.
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It wouldn’t be hard at all to find a charity that helped actual poor people in NYC.
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Everyone in New York City is rich, compared to people in Africa.
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The public health charities aimed at developing nations do make a difference I think — malaria, vaccinations, the cervical cancer screen with vinegar recently reported. They have the effect of letting those countries jump ahead to the technology available now, routinely, in other countries. Folks are developing sophistication in how to deliver these services in a way that doesn’t undermine the local economy and local expertise. I’m much more wary of food aid and general assistance and their long term impact when they are continued in a sustained way.
There was a good NYT article on the misdirection of food aid (though it was targeted mostly at government food aid, which works as much as more of an agricultural subsidy than as aid).
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/24/when-food-isnt-the-answer-to-hunger/?emc=eta1
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Meh, that was also the same sentiment of the 19th/20th century Robber Barons. I think Andrew Carnegie said something along the lines of the purpose of life was to spend the first half acquiring money and the second half giving it away. While certainly it’s better than not giving away one’s money, I don’t think a return to Gilded Age nobless oblige (with the attendent return in massive income inequality) is something to be all that admired.
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Indeed, Carnegie’s workers would have preferred safer foundries and higher wages, instead of neighborhood libraries with his name on them.
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I think it is worth mentioning that some of his libraries have swimming pools. It isn’t just books.
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On the other hand, a techie computer programmer who knows how to program is probably better off working at what he knows how to do then trying to teach 10 year olds in Zimbabwe, or instruct them on how to use malaria nets.
It’s a valid point to worry that what you’re doing for your day job causes actual harm (unsafe factories, useless gaming/trading, . . .). But, if your day job isn’t doing harm, doing what you know how to do to earn money, and using that money to support others who can do what you think needs to be done (but might not do particularly well, teach, doctor, cure disease, build roads or houses), isn’t a bad plan.
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If, say, you are the first African-American to be editor of your school’s law review, maybe organizing people in the poor part of a major US city is where you can do the most good. Or maybe not.
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Bizarrely, I know that guy’s wife! She used to live here, and we have several friends in common. Small world. (Just catching up after spending several days in the woods of New Hampshire at a crafts retreat.)
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