Things I’ve Been Thinking About Lately: 
Does Personal vs. Political Hypocrisy Matter? 

I’ve noticed that there is often a gulf between the political and the personal when it comes to theories about what is right and wrong.

And a parallel difference in what people believe about how governments should solve problems and how they solve these same problems in their own lives.

I’m not exempt.

For example, I am theoretically opposed to everything about Communism, including the massive and authoritarian distribution of wealth. The idea is so obviously idiotic, it seems to me, that I shouldn’t have to provide historical examples to prove how destructive it is.

Yet, in my personal life, it is not infrequent that I find myself giving cash and other sorts of financial assistance to people to help them achieve or acquire something sensible and helpful to them.

In doing this, I recognize the hypocrisy. But I repress my internal critic because I enjoy the experience. And, after all, it’s my own money. I can do what I want with it!

Over decades of giving away money this way (privately and personally as opposed to contributing to charities that I control), I have developed some “rules” I try to follow to mitigate the many forms of damage that giving people “free” money creates:

* I don’t give money to anyone that asks for it. The idea here is that I consider asking for money to be a moral flaw. That’s my rule. I do break it from time to time.

* I attach zero expectations to my gift. The moment it goes from my hand or bank account to the other person, the transaction is finished. And I have no interest in knowing if the recipient did with it what they said they would do. The pleasure is in giving the money. Finding out later that I was bamboozled or the person I had hopes for failed will only bring me unhappiness.

* I do expect a thank-you. And a sincere one. As GG, a Zen master and friend of mine once said, “Gratitude is what nature demands from a gift. Without it, the exchange is unbalanced. That said, I prefer thank-yous that are short and sweet. If they are longwinded or groveling, they are embarrassing.

Interestingly, these rules are pretty much the opposite of the rules my family and I have established for FunLimón, our community development center in Nicaragua.

There, we:

* Give financial assistance only to people who are willing to not just ask for help but ask for it formally and provide justification for what they want.

* Make it clear that when they get or borrow money from FunLimón, they accept the obligations that come with it, including, in some cases, paying it back (with or without interest), paying it back in labor, or “passing it forward” in the future.

* Require recipients of our financial aid to keep us posted on their use of our funds and meet certain requirements as they spend the money.

* Demand a formal thank-you, because we believe that saying thank you is a moral obligation.

So, that’s how I – a diehard free market/ Libertarian thinker – commit hypocrisy.

My left-leaning (and outright Socialist) friends are hypocritical in the opposite way.

They believe deeply in the redistribution of wealth – so long as it is the government or someone else that is paying for it. Ask them to contribute their “fair share” of the cost of whatever redistribution of wealth they are advocating, and they’ll tell you that they pay taxes… and, anyway, they are strapped for cash. “Let the one-percenters pay for it,” they say, looking me up and down.

Here is a funny video clip that demonstrates this.

This clip is about letting illegals stay in their homes. Watch till he asks if they could take in a migrant.

The point is that there is very often a gulf between our political/ social/ economic views on how companies or countries should redistribute wealth and what we do as private citizens with our families, our friends, and even strangers.

I don’t know if there is an “answer” to this contradiction. I justify my hypocrisy (in redistributing my own wealth to needy people) by pointing out that the money I’m giving away is my money. Even Ayn Rand would admit that there is nothing about free-market Capitalism that prohibits private charity.

On the other hand, I can’t think of a good justification for the hypocrisy of the Left. Can you?