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Who Really Cares? New York : Basic Books, 2006

Decent Essays

Brooks, Arthur C. Who Really Cares? New York: Basic Books, 2006

In Who Really Cares?, Arthur C. Brooks made an intriguing case regarding the debate between which group of the general public, liberals or conservatives, gives more to charity. The author notes that he sees in society, that there is a popular belief that people whose ideologies fall under the ideas of liberalism give more than their conservative counterparts.

The main point he is trying to make, is that conservatives happen to be more charitable than liberals. Not just in giving, but in how often they volunteer as well. The author sums up the wide held belief in the following quote. “The conventional wisdom runs like this: Liberals are charitable because they advocate government redistribution of money in the name of social justice; conservatives are uncharitable because they oppose these policies.” (Pg 20.).

However, Arthur C. Brooks proves that the opposite of the belief featured in the respective quote is true by looking at data of charity giving trends. I felt through reading this, we can explain his argument in two spheres. A much more in depth domestic (exclusively applying to the United States) argument, and a less in depth international argument (applying mostly to Europe, and comparing it to United States.).

His first domestic focused argument has to do with the data between liberal states, conservative states, and giving patterns. He notes that conservative states tend to be

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