This is the reason most of us give to charity in the first place-an act that would be impossible without the existence of property rights institutions. In fact, the tree trades with the boy at each encounter, giving pieces of itself to the boy and receiving a psychic benefit in return. Each exchange between man and tree is voluntary. The economist in me can see through the charade in this book that the tree gives without wanting anything in return. If only the government could inculcate that value into the taxpayers! The book assumes that, surely, only the selfish would object to such a message. Those drawn to it, it seems to me, tend to have a left-of-center orientation, and they like the message that it is better to spend a life giving than to spend one taking. Given the idiotic assignation of human feelings to the tree in a story that depicts an odd man-tree friendship, it is hard to see the appeal of this book. The tree is a metaphor for perfect altruism the man is a metaphor for perfect selfishness. At the end of the book, the man is old, near death, decrepit, and the tree is a stump, with nothing left to give the man but a place to sit and rest. After each visit, and with his leafy friend’s consent, the man amputates a piece of the tree to help him earn an income, build a house, and construct a boat.Įach time, the tree is said to be happy to have had the opportunity to see its old friend and to give to him once again, just like old times. As a young boy and then as an adolescent, the man plays with the tree, but when he grows up and moves on in life, he abandons it and only drops by to visit intermittently in the ensuing decades. The Giving Tree is about a lifelong friendship between a man and an apple tree. Reading the book recently with my daughter-it was her first reading and my umpteenth-I pondered the appeal of this queer little book and came up without any clear answers. Obviously, this book conveys a deep message to many. Out of five couples, all did, and three were given more than one copy over the course of their marriages. In an unscientific study, I asked some of my married friends if they owned the book. First published over 40 years ago, it qualifies as a classic today, with an sales rank of 164 (at the time of this writing).
And you get at least one copy of that silly book about the boy and the tree.Īt last count, my wife and I have received three copies of Shel Silverstein's famous fable, The Giving Tree. You save a piece of wedding cake and see it survives a year in your freezer-it rarely does. It happens to everyone who gets married, at least, it seems, everyone in my generation.
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