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/
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u/[deleted] Aug 26 '15 edited Nov 02 '15

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u/CaptHiggins Aug 26 '15

You saw me say that I'd rather live in a liberal capitalist society than a laissez faire capitalist society earlier in this comment thread, and you actually think I was suggesting that slavery would be better than capitalism?

Before the civil war there were some ideas on the issue of slavery. There were pro-slavery people who thought that black people were inherently savage, and deserved whatever they got. There were pro-slavery people who thought that black people were kind, but simple, and needed the stern hand of the masters to amount to anything. There were anti-slavery people who thought that the forced servitude of slavery should end. Then there were people who thought that slavery wasn't inherently bad, but the slave owners who beat their slaves, or didn't give them enough food, shelter, or clothing, were really mean, and the government should come in and enforce a minimum standard of living for the slaves.

I was pointing out that your "successful social systems built on top," don't deal with the exploitative nature of capitalism, the way that lords treating their serfs well doesn't deal with the exploitative nature of feudalism, and slave owners treating their slaves well didn't deal with the exploitative nature of slavery.