As my name implies, I like to consider myself in some sense a philosopher. I even have a degree in it! But I don't think that is necessary to consider what is, to me, a rather deep ethical question. Namely: Given the choice between donating money to politicians or to non-partisan, secular charities, which is the right thing to do? More beneath the fold:
Now, the position I have described above is perhaps a little too clear cut. In some real sense donating money to Planned Parenthood is a mixture of both, an act of non-partisan giving but also an inherently political act. In fact, the giving of money at all is at least in some sense political, at least a demonstration against the Prosperity Theology or Randianism that seems far too common in our society. But this is not the type of question I want to consider. Rather, I want to consider purely humanitarian aid against direct political donations. The example given in the title is certainly one such case, and is one I have had to consider directly over the past year.
In 2008, I gave my first ever political donation and I gave it to Barack Obama. Since then, I have become more involved in political giving, so that in no small part thanks to Daily Kos, I have given approximately 1000 dollars in donations the past year to Democrats at every level of the ballot. And so I was tremendously happy when candidates I supported, from Kyrsten Sinema to Maggie Hassan to Heidi Heitkamp won their races. But I admit to being as yet a bit troubled.
The major question that bothers me even now is simply "What good was done?" It seems to me unlikely that my contributions helped many of the candidates I supported win, since their margins were not small enough for my donation to have mattered. The only exceptions to this that I can think of would be Patrick Murphy and Heidi Heitkamp, whose margins were terribly low and for whom early money may have made the difference.
But had I given that 1000 dollars to a charity, say specializing in malaria nets or deworming, I could have saved perhaps two people from death and allowed a hundred children to go to school who otherwise might not be able to. Assuming that perhaps my donations made the difference in one race in the country, was that worth it?
I doubt very much I should kill anyone for even Senator Sanders, so how can I be so blithe in giving money to politicians instead of to those most in need?
I believe I have an answer to this, but I am not entirely certain. My primary belief is that the donating of money is one of few ways that we the people can try to take the government back from corporate control and make it serve the itnerests of the people instead of the interests of the wealthy. Citizens united has, sadly, struck a deep blow against that leveraging of power. But I am not so narcissistic to think that a 100 dollar contribution to our president gives me much leverage on him. But I do believe that when thousands of people like me give even smaller sums, we help to change the balance of power in washington. None of us individually may be heard, but we might be able to be heard if we shout together.
This is not dissimilar to why I try to conserve energy, drive gas effecient vehicles, etc. I doubt very much that my contribution to carbon emissions will take us to the tipping point, but if enough people like me work together we might at least ever so slightly delay the day of reckoning and buy us time to find a real solution.
This is the classic Each-We problem, of course, or the tragedy of the commons. And I happen to agree with Derek Parfit that perhaps even as each of us does "wrong" in not donating to the most effecient charity, we do good on the whole because by taking control of the United States government we can save far more lives. Having an even slightly less warmongering president is enough to save innumerable lives. A House and Senate willing to give even a fraction of 1 percent of money to international charity is worth more than the sum total of our political donations.
What's more, by doing this we might help avoid the pitfalls of charity where we undermine local industries, but this is less clear to me.
This, in any case, is my reason for supporting political candidates. My donations alone do little, but together we are much stronger and that makes what I do right.
But as I said, I have my doubts. Perhaps even together our strength is not enough to do good, and we must be content to do what little we can as individuals. This would be horrid if true, but I cannot say that there has not been evidence in favor of that over these decades. But I hold out hope, and I believe that we- be it the netroots, liberals, progressives, whoever we are- still can apply some pressure to the levers of power.
Nonetheless I would like to know: Do you donate money to political candidates? If so why? If not why not? Am I overly naif, or is it possible that we really can do great things together?