Giving to charity

BillieTheBot

Last night's Children in Need fundraising on TV and a subsequent thread in Anything Goes made me think about the charity issue. Someone I know, a true 'old school' socialist, dislikes charities and believes giving to charity perpetuates the very problems we're trying to solve. His argument is that the capitalist society is content with charities because they provide just about enough help to prevent tragedies on a mass scale from occurring. And by doing that we're bailing out the rich, who otherwise might be forced to dip in their pockets and solve poverty in third world countries once and for all. He extends this argument to all other fields, from cancer research to children's charities to everything else.

I completely disagree with this. For starters, first world countries have shown in the past they are happy to watch famines killing tens of thousands and do nothing about it. How many millions would have to die before first world countries did something about long-term prosperity of poorer nations?

Charities (generally) do a good job and if anything we, as the consumers, should take a more active role and look closely at which companies donate generous amounts of money and which don't.

Former Member

I must say I can see his point, charity rarely deals with the real problems but i don't think that does not make them worthwhile.

Really only govts have enough power to really change things, if we want to alieve poverty then it must be voting in a govt that takes the isssue seriously.........

Former Member

Its a similar argument to that used by more radical elements of the Disability pressure groups who argue that specific legislation about their rights identifies them as being different, rather that ensuring that they are treated the same...

In the case of charity I can understand the sentiment. While we continue to treat places like Etiopia as "charity" cases, we never get to solving the root cause of their problems.