Charity

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William Aramony, president of United Way of America, was getting $463,000 a year in pay and benefits. He flew on the Concorde and spent $20,000 one year on limousines. A spin-off organization bought an apartment for Aramony's use and hired his son. Exposure of these abuses led to Aramony's sudden retirement. The head of the New York-area United Way division (pay: $341,000) also recently retired -- on a lump-sum pension of $3.3 million.

Philanthropoids worry that the scandals at America's biggest charity will make Americans less generous. It would be nice if, instead, this episode led Americans to reconsider the virtues of another way to channel the generosity of the comfortable majority to those in need: Big Government.

Two Republican Presidents have emphasized private charity as a substitute for the heavy hand of government in addressing social needs. Reagan had his Private Sector Initiatives program. Bush has his "thousand points of light" -- a throwaway bit of imagery that has spawned a vast public relations exercise.

Bush chairs the Points of Light Foundation, which spurs private and corporate giving. Something else called the White House Office of National Service has put out (at taxpayer expense) a ridiculous book called Selected Presidential Statements on the Points of Light Initiative, in which 343 Bush bromides are indexed by "theme" and "issue." "Service=Success: Quotes 3, 11, 12, 19 . . . Meaning and Adventure: Quotes 33, 147, 153, 224 . . . The Young People of America Can Save Us: Quotes 8, 39 . . . The Talent and Experience of Older Citizens: Quotes 31, 114, 115 . . . Service Makes a Difference: Quotes 83, 89, 95 . . ." And so on.

Charity is wonderful, and Americans are wonderfully generous ($122 billion in 1990). But in the hands of politicians, charity can become an excuse for ignoring social problems, not a method of addressing them. A Points of Light Foundation brochure puts the challenge well: "While many Americans prosper, another part of our country dwells on the other side of hope. Illiteracy, drug abuse, teen pregnancy, delinquency, homelessness, neglect, alienation . . ."

So, O.K., take homelessness. Should a prosperous society have people living in the streets? To the extent that money can prevent this, does our society have an obligation to find and spend the money? An ugly but honest response would be to say no; it's good when individual people take pity on other people, but society as a whole has no such obligation. It is not an honest response to say society does have an obligation but it should be handled privately. Adam Smith's theory of the invisible hand explains how private greed gets channeled to socially productive ends. But no one suggests that private for-profit business can solve the homelessness problem. And there is no theory of an invisible hand to guarantee that private charity will be sufficient.