Before Christmas, Robert Reich, Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton and now a distinguished professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, published an op-ed claiming that much that goes as “charitable” giving, and for which the donors receive a federal tax deduction, should be relabeled as something else.

A very large proportion of the tax deduction for charitable giving goes to the rich and superrich, he notes; many of the “charities” that get the big contributions actually are elite universities, art museums, operas, and symphonies, and not genuine poverty-alleviating charities; and all of that deduction money is lost to the federal government, unavailable for government social spending. In short, so much of the charitable giving that is rewarded with federal tax deductions goes not to help the genuinely needy but instead consists of the wealthy making “investments in the life-styles [they] already enjoy”–museums, concert halls, etc.–or of the wealthy making “investments in prestige”-a big donation in return for naming rights on a university building.

So “charities” and “charitable donations” ought to be redefined–limited to efforts to help the needy–and Congress ought to “consider limiting the charitable deduction to real charities.”

Reich is on to something. Contributions from wealthy people to wealthy nonprofit organizations that mainly exist to provide services or entertainments that the wealthy could well pay for unaided-it is a stretch to think that the government ought to expend much effort to encourage such giving.

And yet there are multiple reasons not to jump on the Reich bandwagon to limit “charity” and thus the charitable deduction to direct aid to the poor. For example:

* Our society, including the poor, is better off when civil society is thriving, and one way the government assists civil society to thrive is to encourage giving in general.

* Not only specific anti-poverty efforts are helpful to those on the margins; for example, city policies that help keep a roof on and the heating operating in historic church buildings is for the good of all because of the many community-serving programs that such churches house and encourage (see Partners for Sacred Places).

* There’s no particular reason to think that government understands exceptionally well how to alleviate poverty, and so no reason to think that more funding for government programs and less for non-governmental programs will always and inevitably be to the greater good of the needy.

* There’s good reason to worry that our current policymakers, if they redefine a fundamental concept like “charity,” will add secularizing qualifications friendly to faith-based organizations.

* In the long sweep of Western development, it is good to have a broad definition of “charity” that helps to insulate civil society from government over-regulation and over-steering.