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You are displaying a total lack of understanding of the USA. The USA has a long history of charitable societies and social organizations; many of these were des
by nickff 6y ago
You are displaying a total lack of understanding of the USA. The USA has a long history of charitable societies and social organizations; many of these were destroyed by (well-intentioned) government programs, but the USA still has one of the highest rates of private charitable giving in the world.
- mgh2 6y agoCharities are irrelevant from the failures of the system itself.
- antman 6y agoInstead of formal support systems people need to depend on occasional charities.
- comeonseriously 6y agoWhat does "occasional" look like? There are millions who can't find work due to the pandemic. How often should they ask for help? More importantly, why aren't we collectively falling all over ourselves to help those people?
- antman 6y agoThey should not be asking for help it should be a given. It can be the state's work to establish procedures and checks based on real needs rather than private organizations for advertising purposes. This has proven to be inconsistent and not sustainable, I mean for the people. As for the companies they are producing pretty good posters, which also count as part of the charity budget.
- mwambua 6y agoCan you provide examples of such charitable programs and how they were destroyed by government programs?
- lotsofpulp 6y agoThat's the point. A significant portion of US voters, at least in the districts that matter, want to pick and choose who they help. Higher taxes and government provided safety nets are less biased than charities. Why would I be proud of a country where people beg on Facebook for donations when their family gets cancer, and a significant portion of those go on to vote against things like universal healthcare, parental leave, minimum sick leave/vacation leave, etc.
- jonfw 6y ago> Why would I be proud of a country where people beg on Facebook for donations when their family gets cancer So asking for charity is bad, but forcing the government to use it's monopoly of force to take money from others for you is good?
- leetcrew 6y agothe usual counterargument would be that there is more dignity in petitioning the government to consider it an entitlement/right than in begging for money on facebook.
- jonfw 6y agoIt's better to force somebody to give you what you want, than to agreeably do so?
- nickff 6y agoOne important part of charity is that it benefits the donor as well as the recipient; government intervention creates a disconnect, and diminishes empathy.
- srtjstjsj 6y agoHow is paying taxes less empathetic than paying an NGO?
- 49531 6y ago
- wffurr 6y agoI don't think so. Charitable giving is a way to assuage your guilt without actually addressing the root causes that created poverty and inequality in the first place.
- nickff 6y agoExpressing pity on the internet, and voting for politicians who promise to fix things are "way[s] to assuage your guilt without actually addressing the root causes that created poverty and inequality in the first place." Charity can actually help people, whereas your words and your vote are basically worthless.
- dcarmo 6y agoYour charity argument only validates the parent's comment. No healthy society should rely on private charitable as safety net for the less fortunates.
- technobum 6y agoGreat to see HN keeping this level of aloofness in check
- jonfw 6y agoI don't understand why people have so many issues with charity... you want the government to forcibly take money from the rich and give it to the poor- but when they do that organically- it's somehow worse?
- Pils 6y agoUltimately it boils down to an allocation problem. If you think that wealthy folks can better allocate surplus value into social programs than the government then you will support private donation schemes. If not, you support the "welfare state" and an expanded social safety net. This is a debate worth having, but I don't think HN is going to be a good venue for such a debate. "forcibly take money" I assume refers to levying taxes. I think you'll find that governments that don't levy taxes generally produce less liveable societies than those that do.
- jonfw 6y agoI'm hearing an argument here that charitable giving is somehow inferior to taxation- or that amicably receiving charity is somehow less dignified than asking the government to take it for you through force. That's really what I'm responding to here... My belief is that forcing somebody to do anything against their will is inherently immoral. Taxation is included in that. It's not that simple of course- it's all relative, and sometimes taxation can do enough good to outweigh that morality.
- ckosidows 6y ago
- vkou 6y agoCharities serve as that safety net, because something has to fill in the gaps - and they do so incredibly inefficiently. Consider how many tiny, regional/branch charities/NGOs they are in your city alone, and then consider all the overhead of running a small business. Now multiply the two numbers together.
- luckylion 6y agoOn the other hand, the larger the bureaucracy, and the further removed from where the rubber meets the road, the more money it spends on managing itself. Circumstances are unique in most cities, dealing with on location is usually more efficient than a one-size-fits-all approach that cannot consider local reality (or it would lose any and all efficiency).
- vkou 6y ago> On the other hand, the larger the bureaucracy, and the further removed from where the rubber meets the road, the more money it spends on managing itself. If you contrast the effectiveness of the food stamp program, or school lunches, or medicaid to literally any charity in the US, you will find that they blows them out of the water, in terms of impact per dollar. You are vastly underestimating the impact of economies of scale. The overhead of food stamps, for instance is 0.7%. You won't find a single small charity that operates that efficiently.
- luckylion 6y agoThat's because it's a very simple program, much like the stimulus check sent out this year. Works well for things that are the same everywhere ("everybody needs to eat"), but it won't when you need to look at local circumstances. Sending each community money to help the homeless is great, but will also be very inefficient because homelessness is not at all evenly distributed. I understand the hope in UBI in that regard, it would make a lot simpler by giving people money and then praying that they'll use it wisely.
- 6y ago
- claudeganon 6y ago...and that charitable giving has net outcomes far worse than basic social democracies and is frequently used to reinforce the power and standing of the wealthy. There’s nothing in contradiction with the parent’s sentiment and this giving.
- TheRealSteel 6y agoThe fact that people have to rely on private charity for things like healthcare is indeed the problem and the point
- ckosidows 6y agoPrivate charitable givings are tax-deductible (to an extent) so some of those donations aren't entirely, or at all, altruistic. How much of this charitable giving can be attributed to our nation being altruistic and how much of it is just the upper class choosing how their tax money is apportioned? I'm not trying to belittle your point, but is there a source that goes more in-depth on this topic?
- WhompingWindows 6y agoCharitable giving is tax deductible and manages reputations for the wealthy. Furthermore, many of the charities throughout our history haven't actually contributed to the common man's well-being, many are niche interest causes like art, opera, elite universities, prohibition, pro-religious rights, etc. If Americans truly wanted to help the world, they'd allocate their charitable giving more towards bug nets, HIV treatment, food, housing, and causes that help the poor around the world. Side note on HN etiquette, to say the parent comment displays a "total lack of understanding of the USA" is an ad-hominem overstatement, ratchet back the language and turn up the civility.
- thekyle 6y agoI don't think Americans want to help the world any more than Canadians, Europeans, or the Chinese want to help the world. I don't see anything particularly wrong with that. It's only natural people look out for their own self interests.
- nickff 6y agoAn ad-hominiem attack would have been to accuse the grandparent of being a shill or an idiot, and I did neither of those. I said their post betrayed a lack of understanding (A.K.A. ignorance); I argued their points on their terms, and did not accuse them of malice or straw-man their argument. On the other hand, the grandparent did make a statement which could be considered ad hominiem: >"The US has always been a land for the rich to oppress the poor: the system encourages this. Those who care about the less fortunate are the minority."
- quietbritishjim 6y agoEven if that's true, there are at least two problems with that argument (at least as you've said it): * There's no guarantee that those charities are providing the right sort of support for the poor. For example, the thread you're replying to is about worse schooling for the poor, so are charities directly addressing that or just providing after school classes (less good), or even just food handouts to adults after it's already past the best time to educate them (far worse but unfortunately the most likely)? * Are they even directed at the most poor at all? For example, it's common for the rich to donate to cancer research charities, which helps the rich more than it helps poor people who can't afford healthcare at all (but is still a good cause, don't get me wrong).
- srtjstjsj 6y agoMost charity looks like rich people giving money to each other for the tax deduction, or local entrepreneurs using it for advertising spend for their business. I always shudder when my rich coworkers donate money to their own children's private school, get the tax deduction, and also get a corporation gift match.
- username90 6y agoUSA donates a lot since it is tax exempt compared to paying money. Donating to your local church to keep it running so you can keep attending it isn't really a charitable donation for example.
- sokoloff 6y agoDonating $1000 and getting $250-350 of credit on your taxes for that is still a net loss of $650-750. That it keeps the church you prefer to attend open is no worse to me (as an atheist) than supporting a museum, a university, or the orchestra.
- srtjstjsj 6y agoWhy isn't my gym membership or my football tickets or my Starbucks orders tax deductible, but my church dues are?
- mikeshank 6y ago"Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden and his wife gave an average of $369 a year to charity during the past decade, his tax records show." - ABC news
- srtjstjsj 6y agoThat was in 2008. "Joe Biden and his wife donated just $70,000 to charity in the two decades leading up to 2017, per their tax returns. But when their earnings skyrocketed in 2017, so did their giving. That year they handed more than $1 million, or about 9% of their income" (including $250K to their own foundations) (still pretty low since he and his surviving children got stinking rich after the Vice Presidency and is quite old) -Forbes
- fizixer 6y agoSo you're of the opinion that the gallup study about economic inequality [0] is flawed (or maybe politically motivated?). Or is it that you think even the most charitable nation is not charitable enough? (hence acknowledging that charity doesn't appear to work). [0] https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2020/01/09/trends-in-income-and-wealth-inequality/ https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2020/01/09/trends-in-income-...
- nickff 6y agoSaying that a system is currently operating below the desired level of performance does not mean that it can't work. I agree that the USA is not charitable enough, but that doesn't mean charity "doesn't appear to work". The government is also bad at achieving its stated aims, but that doesn't mean we should stop depending on it, or stop trying to improve it.