Volunteerism, private charity, and …. Conservatism?

[Comrade_Stalin]

Not too long ago, I was looking on line for and found a clip on YouTube about communism. In it, a capitalist asked, a communist how much they gave to charity, and then point out that capitalism gives a lot to charity. Now normally one would think that volunteerism and charity are left-wing ideals. If we look at it, the United States, the prefect model of capitalism has a volunteer army. So why do we see a lot capitalist who are pro-volunteerism and private charity?

[Pirate Utopian]

Mostly to be likeable.
It's basically to not be seen as a prick.

I guess you're talking about Sam Webb on Glenn Beck.

[Tatarin]

The simple answer is that they can do it. But charity has never gone anywhere. It is band aid to a serious disease, not to mention that charity itself is profitable once you get to the right position within it. Note that this doesn't mean that all money donated go nowhere, but it is where the money go, and if the needed community can decide what to do with it. This is almost never the case - it goes dierctly to private medicine or private food.

Volunteering is another question I myself have; how do people live on volunteering? How do they pay for their homes, and food, let alone all the travels in question? Genuine volunteer work is, just as charity, a good thing. But like charity it is only a small stop to a much bigger problem. The food- and health crisis of many "third world" countries can only be solved if those countries themselves become ruled by the people and for the people.

Although, I doubt many charity organizations would want a betterment. Why else give to "Food For Africa" if Africa makes it's own food for it's own people?

[Comrade_Stalin]

Mostly to be likeable.
It's basically to not be seen as a prick.

I guess you're talking about Sam Webb on Glenn Beck.

yes, in fact it was. It was the main reason that I was turned off by the USA communist party.

[Joe_Germinal]

The reason why capitalists love charity is the similar to why they love bailouts. Charity is an attempt to solve social problems by private action in a similar way as bailouts are a solution to the problems of private property owners by social action.

It's true that capitalists give to charity because they can afford to and because it makes them look good. But it is also true that working class and poor people often give a higher proportion of their incomes to charity (as well as doing practically all the volunteering). What this means is that problems created by the capitalist system in our society are solved (or more often tenuously bandaged) by what amounts to voluntary regressive taxation.

The Trot comedian Mark Steel did an excellent and amusing radio program on this topic called "Giving to Charity should be Illegal". I'd highly recommend the program if you have a spare half hour: http://www.marksteelinfo.com/audiovideo/audio/Charity.mp3

[Tablo]

The main reasons Companies give charity is because it makes them look good and they get tax breaks for doing it. They donate entirely for the profit motive.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I have nothing against charities and helping others if you can - but as someone else said, it doesn't do anything to actually help the situation. At best it can give a few people temporary relief.

Companies probably have to have some material reason for giving to charities - either PR, buying influence, or tax breaks - but this is because they are required by their stockholders to have a material reason for giving money or materials. Rich individuals can give to charities for any number of reasons from guilt to empathy to trying to build a legacy to narcissism or whatever. Liberals and conservatives point to philanthropy and charity as "solutions" to social problems or even to support the just-ness of the capitalist system.

But to paraphrase Malcolm X, don't stab me in the back and pull it out half-way and expect me to thank you.

Poverty and inequality aren't deformations of the system, they are what the system of profit is built on. So what if Carnegie or Bill gates give away 99% of their personal fortunes - the industries and companies they represent made many times more than just their personal fortunes through the exploitation of labor. The Waltons can give away money and it won't begin to make up for the poverty they created by forcing out their competitors and paying sub-living wages to their workers... which is how they were able to force out the competition in the first place.

And don't get me started about the "all-volunteer" military. If you knew any of my classmates who enlisted after high school, you'd realize that volunteerism wasn't their main interest. Having a job when they really had no prospects was their main interest - in fact the US military is one of the biggest employers in the whole country. Even things like the Peace-Corps or Teach-For-America aren't because people are idealistically itching to volunteer: all of them need work and don't have any exciting prospects and many are just trying to get away from small towns or having to go straight from high school or college into a brutal job market (even in the "good times").

[DenisDenis]

Prosonaly i'm completely against charity, escpecially to 'help' the people in third world countries. Most of the time the amount of money you give gets absorbed on wages the people of these charity companies get. It also gets in the hands of some dictatorial regime that takes 50% of all the goods for itself.

Another thing is that i believe it deactivates the people over there. If they are relying on relief-goods then why the hell would they keep on working for almost nothing.

The only way to get rid of their poverty is to chance the system, globally. Not only over there but also here in the west.

[Comrade_Stalin]

The reason why capitalists love charity is the similar to why they love bailouts. Charity is an attempt to solve social problems by private action in a similar way as bailouts are a solution to the problems of private property owners by social action.

It's true that capitalists give to charity because they can afford to and because it makes them look good. But it is also true that working class and poor people often give a higher proportion of their incomes to charity (as well as doing practically all the volunteering). What this means is that problems created by the capitalist system in our society are solved (or more often tenuously bandaged) by what amounts to voluntary regressive taxation.

The Trot comedian Mark Steel did an excellent and amusing radio program on this topic called "Giving to Charity should be Illegal". I'd highly recommend the program if you have a spare half hour: http://www.marksteelinfo.com/audiovideo/audio/Charity.mp3

Best mp3 ever:laugh::thumbup1:. Now I love the British.

[Comrade_Stalin]

The reason why capitalists love charity is the similar to why they love bailouts. Charity is an attempt to solve social problems by private action in a similar way as bailouts are a solution to the problems of private property owners by social action.



The why are there some people on this site that believe in Volunteerism?

[robbo203]

The why are there some people on this site that believe in Volunteerism?


Communism entails free voluntary labour, people giving freely according to their abilities and taking freely according to ther self determined needs. This is not to be confused with charity.

Actually if you want an insight into the nature of charity I suggest you dip into the literarure surrounding the figure of the French anthropologist Marcel Mauss who wrote a seminal work in the early 20th century called The Gift. One of the points Mauss made was that the gift entails an obligation of the recipient to return or reciprocate with another gift. If I remember correctly he applied this insight to different societies such as the Maoris in New Zealand and the Kwakiutl in NW america. Among the Maoris for example there is a mystical concept of the "hau" which roughly means the spirit of the giver which always needs to return to its source through gift exchanges.

Taking this argument further we can see how this can apply to charity as a form of social control which places the recipient of charity in a state of obligation to the giver. My recollection of this is hazy but one of the problems with the adminisatration of the poor law in 19th century Britian as the authorities saw it was that this relationship between recipient and giver was becoming progressively undermined and depersonalised. The powers-that-be felt that the poor were taking advantage of the situation for example by moving between parishes and claiming assistance multiple times. Presumably instead of being eternally grateful and knowing their proper station in life, that is. And that of course led to an overhaul in the system of providing assistance to the needy.

Though the modern conception of state welfare is that it is not charity but a right of citzenship I think the kernal of the idea that this is something that we should be grateful for still remains

[whore]

the difference is in world mind set.
capitalists (supporters of the system) believe that a person should be able to do what they want with their money. many believe that giving to charity is a good thing (possibly influenced by their religion, islam and christianity both promote charity).

communists gernally consider charity a bandaid solution. a stopgap. the real solution, is of course, communism (a revolution, followed by communism would perhaps be a better way to describe it).

[Comrade_Stalin]

Communism entails free voluntary labour, people giving freely according to their abilities and taking freely according to ther self determined needs.

Taking this argument further we can see how this can apply to charity as a form of social control which places the recipient of charity in a state of obligation to the giver.

Are we not creating "a form of social control which places the recipient of charity in a state of obligation to the giver" by asking for free voluntary labour? Where we are forced by social forces (obligation if you will) to build according to their abilities and only taking what they need?

[comradshaw]

Not too long ago, I was looking on line for and found a clip on YouTube about communism. In it, a capitalist asked, a communist how much they gave to charity, and then point out that capitalism gives a lot to charity. Now normally one would think that volunteerism and charity are left-wing ideals. If we look at it, the United States, the prefect model of capitalism has a volunteer army. So why do we see a lot capitalist who are pro-volunteerism and private charity?

First and foremost: charity is rubbish. It's the assumption that we must have economic classes, and there must be a caste system in life, ie, some people are just less fortunate. This idea would actually only exist under feudal or capitalist systems, in which a small minority was super-rich and owned the means of production.

Charity's pathetic. I mean, did you see these ridiculous Haiti telethons with people like Bill Clinton and Matt Damon? Seems to me what they're saying is "Hurry up and sweep these poor blacks under the rug so we can get on with our dinner parties and limos.

With this said, unfortunately under capitalism, it's the only way to help some people. But under true socialism, equality would be maximized. Needs like food, water, and shelter would be free for all people. In other words, under real socialism, or true communism, we wouldn't need charity. I'm not suggesting we shouldn't give if we can, but we should be demanding institutions that provide equality and do not create these obscene disparities.

In regards to a volunteer army in the U.S.: never heard of it. Are you referring to the mercenary army that recruits the working-poor in exchange for money? Doesn't sound much like a volunteer army to me. It's a volunteer army for people with privilege. For many poor working-class people, they join the army out of economic desperation. Many people have to make the choice: work on the black market, ie sell drugs or become a sex worker, or join the army. Again, these are the kind of "choices" capitalism presents many with.

[Comrade_Stalin]

.

In regards to a volunteer army in the U.S.: never heard of it. Are you referring to the mercenary army that recruits the working-poor in exchange for money? Doesn't sound much like a volunteer army to me. It's a volunteer army for people with privilege. For many poor working-class people, they join the army out of economic desperation. Many people have to make the choice: work on the black market, ie sell drugs or become a sex worker, or join the army. Again, these are the kind of "choices" capitalism presents many with.

But are we not doing the same thing under volunteerism, only with social desperation, instead of economic desperation. In this case they have social obligation instead of economic ones. Yes, you no longer have the choice, between the military, sex worker, and black market. You have the choice between the military, and not being a volunteer, which would mean that you are not producing by your ability.

[Floyce White]

The OP pretty much nailed it in the message title. Private charities and volunteering are to conservatism as public welfare programs and being employed as social workers are to liberalism. (200 years ago, the public welfare program was the poorhouse, and the social workers were the police.) As party commanders and enlisting as unpaid labor are to socialism.

All forms of capitalism presuppose that the poverty striken cannot and must not take matters into their own hands. Looting is one half of the communist method. The other half is self-organization of the looters.

[robbo203]

Are we not creating "a form of social control which places the recipient of charity in a state of obligation to the giver" by asking for free voluntary labour? Where we are forced by social forces (obligation if you will) to build according to their abilities and only taking what they need?

Yes indeed. This is precisely why I consider communism to be what is called a "moral economy". And this exactly answers the point that without economic compulsion in the form of wage slavery nobody would do anything. Thats rubbish. People in free access communism will have a very well developed sense of moral obligation and duty towards each other since we would recognise completely our mutual interdependence as social animals.

There is however a huge difference between a communist gift economy and capitalism. In communism social control is utterly diffused. No one individual or group can exercise any control over another since everyone has free access to the means of living and all labour would be voluntary. There is simply no leverage to enable such power to be exercised.

In capitalism we have a class system in which a small mionority by virtue of its ownership of productive wealth can excercise enormous power. Social control is concentrated. It is in this context that charity can become a potent weapon in its ideological battle to consolidate that class power

[Comrade_Stalin]

Yes indeed. This is precisely why I consider communism to be what is called a "moral economy". And this exactly answers the point that without economic compulsion in the form of wage slavery nobody would do anything. Thats rubbish. People in free access communism will have a very well developed sense of moral obligation and duty towards each other since we would recognise completely our mutual interdependence as social animals.

There is however a huge difference between a communist gift economy and capitalism. In communism social control is utterly diffused. No one individual or group can exercise any control over another since everyone has free access to the means of living and all labour would be voluntary. There is simply no leverage to enable such power to be exercised.

In capitalism we have a class system in which a small mionority by virtue of its ownership of productive wealth can excercise enormous power. Social control is concentrated. It is in this context that charity can become a potent weapon in its ideological battle to consolidate that class power

One of the problems I have with this is that we think that all social forces are good. Is drinking too much good? Drinking is not always the result of economic compulsion, sometimes it is from social compulsion. I drink so I can look like I’m a part of the group, to the point I may kill someone, from my actions. Where was the economic compulsion to do bad there? Will we just be trading one compulsion for other then? One of my problems with volunteerism is that it turns wages into wage slavery, no matter what the compulsion is. Unions ask to increase wages, and volunteerism, ask for wages to be put to zero. Therefore, under volunteerism, Union are wage slavery supporters.

[RadioRaheem84]

We don't want charity, we want the factories! We want the means to take of ourselves as a community, not to hope that some rich person would be charitable. The Robber Barons were some of the most charitable people ever, yet they concentrated the nations wealth into their own greedy hands. Andrew Carnegie advocated for rich people needing to be charitable as they were the only ones that could truly help society.