In a free and open society, we recognize that the right to trade freely is the bedrock of economic liberty. Individuals (or groups of them, in the form of corporations) can come together and make non-zero-sum exchanges. That is to say, the underlying characteristic of these exchanges is that both parties believe they are benefiting from the transaction. It is one of the miracles of capitalism that, often, they both are.
While we may legislate or regulate against certain categories of transaction, often times these restrictions simply recognize and attempt to surpress transactions that misrepresent the potential benefit between the parties. Disclosure regulation on Wall Street, the fine print on your mobile phone contract, and the FDA's drug approval process are all different examples of society's attempt to keep trade open and honest, so that parties trading can evaluate the benefits clearly.
In other words, mutual benefit is what we strive for, the most moral form of transaction. It is clearly better than deceit, where I convince you that a transaction will benefit you by witholding or manipulating information that could reveal an imbalance of benefit. If I roll back the odometer on my Honda before I sell it to you, deceiving you about the potential benefits (to you) of the transaction, I have made it a zero-sum exchange: I benefit at your cost.
Mutual benefit is also clearly preferable to force or monopoly, which both restrict the ability to look elsewhere for a beneficial transaction. Like deceit, force and monopoly can make a transaction zero-sum -- but the costs are out in the open. If there is only one cable company in my city, I may find myself paying a steep price for my service. I may be fully aware that I am overpaying, but I recognize that I don't have options in this case, so I pay up.
Within this heirarchy, the concept of charity sits precariously. Is it an exchange of mutual benefit? Is it an exchange in which I forego my direct benefit for someting else -- a deferred benefit, say, or a benefit for someone else? For if all the benefit of the transaction is to the recipient, then we have a zero-sum transaction, which would likely be immoral. I could not, for example, sell myself into slavery, even if I desired it. The goverment would intervene in such an unfair transaction.
In many cases, a chaitable transaction may in fact be mutually beneficial. I may choose to support the Red Cross, knowing that I might someday be the victim of a natural disaster. I want the Red Cross to be there for me. But in that sense, the transaction seems closer to purchasing insurance than to charity.
What about giving to an organization that can in no way benefit me -- such as donating to famine relief for a third-world country? I don't plan to travel to this country, and I'm unlikely to be impressed into citizenship there against my will. I simply want to help feed people who are starving. Perhaps the benefit to me is that one person does not starve. Maybe that good feeling is what I derive from the transaction. In that case, it is up to me to decide if that good feeling is enough to offset the cost to me.
I might, after all, make a donation to an ineffective charity. What if, for example, my donation to famine relief ended up spent on fancy cars and swanky offices for the NGO's officers? Or what if the donation went to rice that was expropriated by the government of the poverty-stricken land, put out on the black market, and sold at a price that none of the starving citizens can afford? This might steal some of that good feeling that made the exchange seem mutually beneficial.
So I am willing to give money to charities, but I will hold them accountable for results. The benefit to me comes in the form of the charity acting efficiently and effectively at its mission, whatever that may be. The benefit to the me, in other words, is essentially the guarantee that I can feel good about what I've done.
So we've established that even a charitable transaction has benefits to both sides, and that accountability, while a more nebulous type of benefit to one party, is nonetheless a benefit. But we don't need to postulate poverty-stricken countries to see this. It makes sense even in the everyday world. Imagine that I pay the rent for my unemployed younger brother. I'm going to expect the same accountability from him that I expect from the famine charity. It will make me feel good to help him knowing that he will he put that time and freedom I paid for to good use -- to get a job and pay next month's rent himself. But what If he spends it on drugs, does no job hunting, then returns the following month with a request for more money? Has he retroactively stolen that good feeling I paid for? And am I likely to help him again, or would that be simply enabling him in his poor habits and decisions?
It's worth thinking about this in the realm of public policy as well. I might support legislation that would take more of my money, through taxes, for increased housing for the homeless, or increased payments to welfare recipients. Again, I may be concerned about being in that situation myself. I may also believe that fewer homeless or poor in my community will mean a better quality of life for me. But let's put that aside for the moment and say that all I really want is to feel that I have truly helped someone, that paying my taxes is an act of charity rather than a strictly utilitarian bargain. What accountability do I require in this transaction?
It occurs to me that I should require the stewardship accountability that was an obvious responsibility of the famine relief organization -- that my money not go to padded budgets or irresponsible behavior. But I should also require the personal accountability I demanded from my brother -- that the recipient of charity use that gift toward ameliorating the problem that made charity necessary in the first place. Unless government assistance occupies another, unexplored realm of transaction, that seems reasonable. It would be immoral for the government to force me into a transaction in which I do not benefit or deceive me on the extent of that benefit.
We sometimes think of charity as freely given, unrestrained generosity; but in the real world, we make significant demands when we give. This strikes me as proper. There is nothing generous about throwing bad money after good, ignoring the direct or indirect consequences, or giving precedence to my good feeling above the benefit to the recipient. After all, if a charity -- or a government -- abrogates its duty to use my money to truly help a truly needy beneficiary, it has played out an immoral zero-sum transaction with both of us.