Is there not a legitimate public interest in knowing the source of enormous contributions to charities and political causes?
The scale of these contributions mean they have the potential to significantly distort markets, and reorder societal priorities, arbitrarily refocusing vast resources from one cause to another on the whim of a single individual.
With great wealth comes great power, with great power comes great responsibility, and with great responsibility comes a great need for transparency and oversight.
If they realize they have to choose between charity and privacy, they may just stop donating. Less measurably, other potential large donors may never take the leap, knowing they could not possibly keep their privacy.
Why stop at contributions, when one could refocus resources just the same transacting with a corporation or partnership, or investing or loaning as well as donating?
And at the level of local politics (which in many cases has a greater impact on our day-to-day lives than national politics) you can become a high school or politician's largest donor for less than the cost of a house or high-end car.
And of course you wouldn't want large donors to disguise large donations by making them as many small, indirect donations!
Shouldn't we make everyone's finances totally public?
I think it's perfectly fine for interested citizens and journalists to investigate those cases, too. There is quite a bit of investigative journalism like that that happens at the local level, at least in some places. For example, if a previously unknown company suddenly starts buying up a lot of local land, it's natural that residents would want to look into what this company is and where their money comes from. Is it a front for another company? Who are its investors? Does it have ties to politicians?
Even if your argument was true, the correct way to go about it was to make a law that required publicly declaring such contributions over a certain value threshold. Unless we formally accept this, in the form of a law, these people have the right to privacy and there is no legitimate public interest in violating that.
Comments
Is there not a legitimate public interest in knowing the source of enormous contributions to charities and political causes?
The scale of these contributions mean they have the potential to significantly distort markets, and reorder societal priorities, arbitrarily refocusing vast resources from one cause to another on the whim of a single individual.
With great wealth comes great power, with great power comes great responsibility, and with great responsibility comes a great need for transparency and oversight.
If they realize they have to choose between charity and privacy, they may just stop donating. Less measurably, other potential large donors may never take the leap, knowing they could not possibly keep their privacy.
Why stop at contributions, when one could refocus resources just the same transacting with a corporation or partnership, or investing or loaning as well as donating?
And at the level of local politics (which in many cases has a greater impact on our day-to-day lives than national politics) you can become a high school or politician's largest donor for less than the cost of a house or high-end car.
And of course you wouldn't want large donors to disguise large donations by making them as many small, indirect donations!
Shouldn't we make everyone's finances totally public?
I think it's perfectly fine for interested citizens and journalists to investigate those cases, too. There is quite a bit of investigative journalism like that that happens at the local level, at least in some places. For example, if a previously unknown company suddenly starts buying up a lot of local land, it's natural that residents would want to look into what this company is and where their money comes from. Is it a front for another company? Who are its investors? Does it have ties to politicians?
Even if your argument was true, the correct way to go about it was to make a law that required publicly declaring such contributions over a certain value threshold. Unless we formally accept this, in the form of a law, these people have the right to privacy and there is no legitimate public interest in violating that.