I find it quite ironic and fundamentally upsetting that Obama would sign a $5.7 billion National Service Bill into law which pays Americans to volunteer. First, is it not by definition alone that volunteering does not mean getting paid? Secondly, where does the current administration find the funds to bail-out virtually every major industry in America and still commit billions to paying volunteers to work? Lastly, the fundamental problem is not encouraging volunteerism, as that is one of the great American concepts, but instilling an erroneous idea in the heads of future Americans that giving back to your community involves getting something in return.
Volunteerism versus the concept of paying volunteers adds a third – altruistic values or motivation. The late Dr. Charles Tilly (1929-2008), who wrote extensively on concept of work and social values, compartmentalised work into four basic sectors – the world of labour markets, the informal sector, household labour, and volunteer work (See: Tilly and Tilly, 1994, pg. 291 for a definition of volunteering). Basically two social ideologies have collided, governmental respect for the tax payer’s dollars (being good stewards and being prudent and fiscally responsible) and the desire to encourage Americans to volunteer (the concept that volunteerism is a value upheld by our society). The collision of these two values happens when the notion of paying volunteers is developed and implemented. At this very instance, the value which is at the heart of volunteerism (altruistic values or motivation) is corrupted as volunteering moves from the forth quadrant of Tilly’s “mapping of work’s diverse forms” to the first – the labour market. The passion and motivation of wanting to do something good for society regardless of compensation is corrupted by an hourly salary and entitlements to college grants. The latter a more reasonability accepted form of altruistic motivation than the former. It is the fiscal irresponsibility of desiring to pay volunteers, which undermines the motivational drive, of actually wanting to volunteer for all the right reasons.
Volunteering should be done without an expectation of anything in return, precluding the personal satiation of knowing you made a difference in your community. In my years of volunteer service, which includes the Seventh-day Adventist Food boxes, the Delta Museum, Council Tree Pow Wow, and mentoring kids in Delta and Mesa Counties, I never expected, nor received compensation, but was rewarded by seeing citizens come together and accomplish great tasks without government subsidies.
Paying volunteers is not the answer to our social or economic problems and as a tax payer I find it rather ironic.
