: 1:Charity makes the recipients beholden, specifically we can look through history to the Nineteenth C. wherein 'the undeeserving poor' were not given relief, or otherwise were bul;lied by their oh-so chairtable patrons.You mean the givers of charity gain power over the potential recipients "dance for this food buddy" - that kind of thing? I agree, if you are going to help just help. I do hate people who think shaving their beards off is a sacrifice. If you want to do it just do it, dont need praise from a third party, dont need to do a tosserish TV special about it with second rate comics pretending to care. grrrr
: 2:Charity is the capitalists' social conscience, to make up for the fundamentally anti-social character of their system. Charity steps in where the market fails.
If someone wants to help another I dont see anything wrong with that, if some people gather and ask for donations to help out I dont see the problem with it (even if the beard shaving and 'look how kind I am' nonsense seems part of it). If their motivation is guilt then more fool them for accepting a guilt which is not earned. If you want to help somoene, or some people, just do it.
: 3:Power, it makes reipients dependant upon patrons, and it relies on the continued success and largess of the patrons.
Bit like the welfare system then, having the same 'lasts forever, always go back to the well' effect.
: 4:If the problem is worth dealing with, then surely it cannot be right to leave it to individual whim to deal with it- it requires a social problem.
What else then? You said "social problem" (good name for a policy) but i believe you meant social solution. A social solution can only mean a lot of individuals doing something about it.
: 5:'Feel Guilty', all this horror is your fault, pay the hippy tax and you will be absolved. It inhibits action. It obfusates the causes of problems, and inhibits and understanding of their nature.
Guilt? if you really want to be guilty. The latter point - yes I agree, but you'll understand that the understanding its inhibiting is different for you and I. maybe.
: 6:PR and tax breaks- our robber masters sometimes dig into their disgusting piles of wealth, and hand out some of their small change (robbed from the very poor they claim to be helping) and make a big deal of their largess.
I like that image, were you inspired by our new visitor Marcos?
: Look at where chairty is called in- shools and medicine, the very most necessary social structures of our soicety,a nd the ones the market *cannot* supply.
....to every single person.
: Charity- Don't Do it!
Helping people - just do it and dont make a fuss over it.
hmm, yours is a bit catchier.
None.
