Altruism is not about helping others; it is about serving others **at one’s own expense**. Have you ever heard it said that “it should hurt when you give”?

Have you ever read the story of the widow’s mite in the Bible, which is the clearest pre-Kantian illustration of what altruism really means: that the pain to the giver is the measure of morality, more so than the benefit to the recipient?

Are you familiar with Auguste Comte, the man who coined the term? He wrote: “[The] social point of view cannot tolerate the notion of rights, for such notion rests on individualism. We are born under a load of obligations of every kind, to our predecessors, to our successors, to our contemporaries.” (from his “Catechisme Positiviste”, via Wikipedia)

The idea that you “have to do it” is known as duty, and duty to others is the essence and meaning of altruism. It is a very short step from there to “the gummint making you do it” — as Comte notes, altruism is in opposition to “the notion of rights” that originates in individualism.

So I suggest you revisit your idea of what you mean by “altruism”.

1) It’s entirely possible that the teacher was joking – in just the same way, whenever I meet an Ohio State fan, I say “Oh, but you seem like such a nice person!” – which is merely my taking the opportunity to make a jab at Ohio-Statism, not any real reflection of what I think about folks from Columbus.

That being said, I was right with you up until your paragraph against altruism…

2) It’s not “altrusim” if the gummint is making you do it. I strongly believe in altruism, but for me to impose that belief on somebody else isn’t altruistic in any sense – for me, or for them.

Myrhaf explanation makes more sense to me because it goes along with basic economics. Your suggested explanation might indeed be a factor, but the cause-effect relationship is not obvious to me.

But politics is idiocy.

I see you answered this question, but was your answer based on anything but pure speculation?

There is some data to be found on charitable giving, and the most interesting is that people with lower incomes donate more than people with higher incomes, in fact, as a portion of income, poor people give 30% more than rich people, even in blue states.

Now, has it occurred to you that blue states are richer than red states?

which actually makes social interaction between “classes” even worse. the rich don’t have a clue where that money is going, and the poor have no idea where it comes from.