“Bah! Humbug”, was Scrooge’s opinion of charitable giving. Some economists reckon charity goes against economic rationality. Some have argued that the popularity of charitable giving is proof that people are not economically rational. Others argue that it shows that altruism is something that people get pleasure (utility) from, and so are willing to spend some of their income on it. An interesting question is the extent to which the state is competing with private charity when it redistributes money from rich to poor or spends more on health care and whether this is inefficient.