The "charity" argument

[CartCollector]

This is an argument I've been hearing quite a bit lately. I suspect because Glenn Beck's been pushing it. It goes something like this:
-People giving to charities is good.
-When government taxes people to help others, it's more inefficient than charities and just bad.
-Therefore socialism is evil.

There's quite a few holes in this argument. Number one being government intervention and welfare isn't socialism. Next would be the proof that charity shows why we need socialism, because the current system is so inefficient in meeting people's needs that there needs to be patches (either charities or state intervention) to patch up its weak points. Why donate when you can fight for a system that solves the problems that require donation before they start? Next would be a Marxist argument, that over time capitalists will be competing so heavily with each other that they won't have the money to donate to charities without being forced out of the market.

So what do you think? Do you have any of your own arguments against it?

The second argument was shamelessly stolen from Daniel DeLeon from something that he wrote 110 years ago: http://marxists.org/archive/deleon/works/1900/001225.htm

If so many mouths must be fed at the expense of others, and if thousands, or hundreds of thousands, will get but the meager dinner to which they are accustomed from day to day, then prosperity is distributed so unevenly that that such a large proportion of the people are cut out of it, that it is better to abolish the whole thing and substitute a little justice...

There was a time here when it would have been an insult to a man to offer him his Christmas dinner. He was capable of providing all that he needed. He is no longer. He must depend on what charity doles out to him. He is made a suppliant for Christmas cheer. He is no longer capable of providing for himself, and must depend on what is given him...

There is not a wage worker in the world who may not truthfully say that he may not be a candidate for a public dinner at the next Christmas. The list is growing proportionately larger. The number to be fed increases. The victims of capitalism are so plentiful that a helping hand cannot be held out to all, but some are assisted so that the wheel may not grind too finely. Charity is an insult. Charity is a degradation. But charity is also a weapon in the hands of the capitalist, and it is one that he uses with dire effect.

Such a “merry” Christmas cannot come unless there is some great and terrible wrong. Such a state of affairs works the ruin of all who take part in it. Its increase betokens disaster. Its continuance breeds crime.

A merry Christmas should be a Christmas that finds all men capable of producing their own merriment, instead of having it ladled out to them, to a chorus of self-praise and gratulation on the part of the givers.

[Robocommie]

"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist."

-Archbishop Helder Camara

[El Rojo]

i go to Kier Hardie on this one. I can't remember exactly what he said, and it was couched in 1800's stylee language...

Anyhoo, his basic premise was that prioritizing charity as the means to solving social inequality legitimizes charity, therefore kinda implies that the rich donator peoples can choose to give away as they please. Bottom line is it should be the proletariat taking what is rightfully theirs, rather than the bourgoise giving away at thier own pace.

Aside from that, charities have been round for aaages, but they are just part of the institutions that cause the current social situation, and perpetuate capitalism. And they justify the livestyles of the bourgoise ("i donate to charity!" indignant sotto voice) who thinking that if they give just £2 a month to wateraid, thats all they gotta do. Whilst voting for a government that does over a couple of 3rd world countries every time they get in? nah.

[mikelepore]

Charity is a little bandage placed over a fatal injury.

The main reason that charity is (artificially) made necessary is the fact that capitalism has productivity and property inversely related. It is the fact, in the words of Mill:

"...... that the produce of labour should be apportioned as we now see it, almost in an inverse ratio to the labour -- the largest portions to those who have never worked at all, the next largest to those whose work is almost nominal, and so in a descending scale, the remuneration dwindling as the work grows harder and more disagreeable, until the most fatiguing and exhausting bodily labour cannot count with certainty on being able to earn even the necessaries of life.........."

(John Stuart Mill, _The Principles of Political Economy_, 1865)

[Red Commissar]

This is based off the reasoning that socialism is merely regulation and taxation. It is not, like you said.

In a socialist society, people should have no recourse to seek charity.

What good has "charity" done since it started off as Church services? There is still homelessness, poverty, starvation, etc after all these years.

Essentially this is wrapped up in the quote that Robo had. You get lauded for donating to charity, but to criticize why these people are in such a situation, well... YOU DIRTY TAX LOVING LIBERAL, etc.

[brigadista]

Charity is patronage and it allows the rich massive tax breaks

[MarxSchmarx]

-People giving to charities is good.
-When government taxes people to help others, it's more inefficient than charities and just bad.
-Therefore socialism is evil.

The obvious problem is why government is more inefficient. The Glennbekistanis clearly support gov't for things like a repressive police force. If gov't is so inefficient, why not just give to private corporations who are more efficient at say giving J-walking tickets?

Now some will in fact argue this point. At which point they descend into the "might makes right" argument and you can point out that the collective action of workers will crush their "anarcho-"capitalism fantasy.

[Psy]

The logical flaw of charity in capitalism is it ignores class relations to production. When capitalist gives to charity it is like saying if I rob you and donate part of what I stole back to you I'm helping you.

IE

Capitalist "Here is some food you poor unfortunate soul"

Proletariat "Hey I (as a class) made that food"

Capitalists "And thanks to my generosity I'm allowing you to have a token amount of food you (as a class) created for free".

When proletariat gives to charity they are ignoring the problem is not their fellow proletariat is poor but because capitalist control access to the products of society in order to make surplus value thus the needy will be only given a token amount of aid.

For example Live Aid raised huge sums of money for the needy of Africa yet did NOTHING to actually help the people of Africa as they did not need money instead they needed (and still need) to liberate themselves from their capitalist masters. Meaning if these people wanted to actually eliminate poverty in Africa they should have exported class conscious and revolutionary theory to Africa.