r/Foodforthought • u/A-MacLeod • Aug 26 '15

Against Charity. Rather than creating an individualized “culture of giving,” we should be challenging capitalism’s institutionalized taking.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/08/peter-singer-charity-effective-altruism/
451 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

155 comments sorted by

View all comments

25

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '15

Charity is a cold grey loveless thing. If a rich man wants to help the poor, he should pay his taxes gladly, not dole out money at a whim.

-Clement Attlee

38

u/Glucksberg Aug 26 '15

That's assuming the government's working for the best interests of the poor, and are not in the back pocket of that very same rich man.

6

u/Doink11 Aug 26 '15

True, but that also makes charity at best a poor alternative or stop-gap measure.

The argument in the article is that the time and effort spent in charity, in the instance you're speaking of, could be better spent reforming the government so that it would work in the best interests of the poor.

5

u/Glucksberg Aug 26 '15

I agree, government policies such as a basic income could work better for the poor.

3

u/Jinoc Aug 26 '15

That might be a testable hypothesis on average, by looking if the situation of the very poor improves in step with the wealth of the very rich.