Obsession with Charity these days....

[RadioRaheem84]

The latest rage among the bourgoise is this fascination with charities, non-profits, foundations and NGOs. They're spreading like wildfire yet haven't even put a dent in world poverty.

What is with this ridiculous Carnegie-like mentality about non-profits that the upper crust are so fascinated by?

Every top college kid wants to start up a ridiculous market based solution to poverty or an NGO that helps people.

While I understand that these organizations do help people and I am grateful they're around, they really seem more like a hassle considering that the taxpayers can fund their own social services and create much better ones.

So what is with the obsession? Do they genuinely care about people but believe charities are the way to go?

Is it fair that working class or poor people have to rely on handouts from the rich?

[brigadista]

tax relief
and no to your second q

[Dimmu]

Just a way for the rich to feel important.

The sad thing is that the rich avoid paying the taxes, they give some small amount for charity which usually never reaches its target because these countries are ruled by neo-liberal dictators. And while this happens the poor in their own country suffer.

[graymouser]

NGOs and charities don't just provide philanthropy, they give the wealthy direct avenues into the poorest communities, in several ways. First, they get people who may well otherwise become revolutionaries and give them a way to act that seems to be "doing good" but is in fact bound hand and foot to the continuation of the capitalist system. This converts some of the more active, engaged elements of communities of color into direct agents of the wealthy. Second, they get the ideology that the rich are good people who just want to help out and spread around. Ultra-rich people like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg have tremendously improved their image by charitable giving. And when NGOs work in poor communities they gain that reputation. Then there are the tax loopholes and the fact that NGOs are actually quite wasteful of funds. All of the above goes triple when it comes to the third world - in Philly we just had Malalai Joya, an Afghan feminist who was elected to parliament, come through on a speaking tour and she roundly condemned most of the NGOs that are working in Afghanistan as highly corrupt and effectively furthering the occupation. (She said there were a few exceptions, but that just proves the rule.)

So there's quite a lot going on there ideologically. But at its root, if the rich can paint a picture that they are do-gooders trying to save the world, doesn't it make it less likely that people will rise up and overthrow them?

[JerryBiscoTrey]

Right Wing response:

"Your tryin to replace religion [charities] with government!"
:laugh:

[Game Girl]

I usually give to charity and I never have alot of money. Not for personal benefits. I do it because I generally want to help people anyway I can. However, recently I've been discouraged from giving to charity since i learned that not all donations go to the cause. I think that is ridiculous! ALL the money should go towards whatever cause it's for. Not just a small amount of it.

[el_chavista]

Hey, charity was considered by Marx in the Communist Manifesto:

2. Conservative or Bourgeois Socialism

A part of the bourgeoisie is desirous of redressing social grievances in order to secure the continued existence of bourgeois society.
To this section belong economists, philanthropists, humanitarians, improvers of the condition of the working class, organisers of charity, members of societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals, temperance fanatics, hole-and-corner reformers of every imaginable kind.

Now a day, it would be a way to mislead the real task of the working class: the abolition of wage slavery.

[Tim Finnegan]

Zizek has thoughts:

hpAMbpQ8J7g

Say what you like about the man, I think he's onto something here. He fleshes it out further in the book, if you're interested.

[CommunistsUnite]

A good way to increase sales is to remind the consumer that money spent on your product helps those in need. It's cost-effective to run charities because the profit outweighs the cost.

[eric922]

A good way to increase sales is to remind the consumer that money spent on your product helps those in need. It's cost-effective to run charities because the profit outweighs the cost.
As much as I'm shocked to say this, I completely agree with you. I'm very wary of charities simply because I don't trust where the money goes half the time. To be honest I'd rather the government tax the rich to spend money on schools than give it to some charity that supposedly goes to schools, because at least I know where my taxes are going to some extent.

[kahimikarie]

I've studied a little bit about microcredit ngos like kiva. The object of microcredit is to give people in poverty start up capital for businesses, but desperate people usually just take the loans out for survival and they end up in a cycle of taking out loans to pay off other ones and end up in a cycle of debt. Many others (I think the majority) who try to start businesses with microcredit money fail and go bankrupt. Microcredit loans saddle the people in the poorest communities with debt from ridiculous interest rates and it leads to problems like debt suicide. There's a lot more to it like microloans are bound up with patriarchy, like husbands will force their wives to take out loans for them so as to saddle them with the debt.

[Red Commissar]

Ideally, we would like Charity to be like what Jack London once upheld as the true sense of "Charity" between individuals:

"A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog."

It's mostly just for image purposes and trying to get people less likely to cause problems IMO. I think they are well aware of popular images of the "rich" and will try to deflect anger away from them particularly in tough economic times. Just recently I think the royal wedding in the UK has the royal family requesting that instead of wedding gifts, the guests should give to charity or something along those lines. I think they are aware of popular sentiment as of late towards the royal family and will do- within reason- what they can to dispel it.

I think you can find the same idea with capitalists, NGOs, and so on. I mean NGOs might have some good people working within them (volunteers, I guess) but on the whole, their real impact is doesn't do much. It just helps with image and by extension their hold over the state.

I mean, look at when people talk about the problems about third world countries- ones in Africa in particular. They'll often not really think their nations (developed) are at fault in any way with their current condition when they look at the amount of NGOs, private charities, and foreign development aid. Rather they'll just continue to blame the inhabitants 100% about their condition and not using "their help" wisely. In that way- among many, many other factors- they won't really be challenged to think about the nature of politics and power in Africa and by extension in their own nation and how that ties across the globe.

[Pretty Flaco]

People like you more if you're a philanthropist. What are you going to buy: the product made by an asshole that's awful, or the awful product made by the sweet, loving, wonderful guy who gives aaaaaalllll his money to people in need?

[ZeroNowhere]

I think that, at least when it comes to liberals, it comes from the tendency to just view people in capitalist society as abstract individuals with varying levels of wealth, which is also quite apparent in their view of class as well. There is no question of relations between them, rather people generally seem unrelated, but also unequal when it comes to wealth. Ultimately, that is, people are seen as consumers rather than producers, and, as consumers, they are of course all equal qualitatively, although not quantitatively. A couple of snippets from SLP publications are relevant here:


"First, who is "the consumer"? Is it the worker? The capitalist would certainly like workers to think of themselves as being representative of that category. That is the reason the capitalist media always depict "the consumer" as being the "average" person. If there is a strike on, for example, and the strike interferes with the flow of ordinary articles of consumption, the striker is depicted as the enemy of "the consumer." Or, if the particular TV station or newspaper happens to be "liberal" and its job is to turn out something hostile to the power interests, it is the "fat cat" who is depicted as the enemy of "the consumer." Or, again, if it is a "conservative" TV station or newspaper that is up in arms against high taxes, the newscaster or commentator reveals "the consumer" as the victim of the bureaucrat.

"The reason for these appeals is obvious. EVERYONE IS A CONSUMER - INCLUDING THE STRIKER, THE "FAT CAT," THE BUREAUCRAT AND THE MEDIA ITSELF. If there is any difference between the worker consumers and the bureaucrat and capitalist consumers, it is that the latter consume disproportionately more than the former."
"Petersen went on to say that it is important for the workers to understand that they have no interests in common with the capitalist class and its various reformers. Yet, if the workers were robbed as consumers, they would have interests in common with everyone, since everyone is obviously a consumer."

As merely consumers, they are simply sharing in the social wealth, something essentially transhistorical. The focus is, of course, upon ownership of money, and money is used, more or less, to buy things; if we look at sale rather than only purchase, then capital does appear again, but by look at only wealth differentials in money terms we are looking at them only as consumers. They may just as well be using labour credits, or regulating consumption according to needs, and only distribution, rather than production, is looked at (this can often also involve abstracting from the importance of capital and profit to production, so that one can tax the rich according to the dictates of capitalist 'justice' irrespective of the fact that it weakens the economy). What is important here is that all people, as consumers, appear essentially on the same platform, and all that is unequal is the amount of money which they have, which in some cases it more than they need, and in others less. As such, the state, rather than being a site of class struggle, is in charge of an essentially harmonious society, and its task is simply to redistribute the wealth in order to further equalize the distribution of wealth. The state becomes not a question of interests, but of universal morality. As such, the reason why most liberals will sometimes oppose the rich is simply due to being 'greedy' and trying to have more money than morality dictates. Some socialists also do this, and it is fairly embarrassing. The state is also only problematic because it does not serve the interests of 'society', which in the liberal view does not appear as in fact an abstraction from classes, but rather a potentially harmonious whole.

Charity, as such, is simply a display of this essential harmony, by which those who have more wealth than they need give it to the less wealthy. It is therefore not greed, but sensibility, and therefore fully complements liberal moralism. If there are problems for these liberals, it is generally simply people not acting in accordance with the dictates of morality. Liberals are, therefore, abstract system-builders, forming capitalist panaceas in their heads while disregarding capital, as opposed to communists who simply back the working class movement and working class interests, which have as their end the political rule of the proletariat which itself has as its necessary end the abolition of capitalism, and are concerned with no sectarian eternal principles of morality. Utopian socialists, of course, were on around the same ground as the liberals qua abstract system-building, as are Bernsteinian revisionists, who are essentially utopian socialists who have lost their innocence and reverted to opportunism. All of these are essentially moralistic, whereas communism makes no pretense to any morality which is not a Sophism (that is, a mere guise for working class 'appetites', to borrow a term from the 'Republic').

[piet11111]

Do not forget that by running a "charity" you could further your own views like say the many "democracy" charity's that work towards overthrowing governments hostile to the west.

[bailey_187]

i saw an anarchist sticker the other day that said "charity is the lubricant of exploitation"

[Amphictyonis]

The latest rage among the bourgoise is this fascination with charities, non-profits, foundations and NGOs. They're spreading like wildfire yet haven't even put a dent in world poverty.

What is with this ridiculous Carnegie-like mentality about non-profits that the upper crust are so fascinated by?

Every top college kid wants to start up a ridiculous market based solution to poverty or an NGO that helps people.

While I understand that these organizations do help people and I am grateful they're around, they really seem more like a hassle considering that the taxpayers can fund their own social services and create much better ones.

So what is with the obsession? Do they genuinely care about people but believe charities are the way to go?

Is it fair that working class or poor people have to rely on handouts from the rich?

They want to massively cut taxes/government social programs. In order to do this and fool themselves into thinking they're rational moral people they try to create the facade that private charity is the answer to all the problems.

[Robocommie]

I've studied a little bit about microcredit ngos like kiva. The object of microcredit is to give people in poverty start up capital for businesses, but desperate people usually just take the loans out for survival and they end up in a cycle of taking out loans to pay off other ones and end up in a cycle of debt.

Don't nine out of ten small businesses fail within the first year anyhow?

[Robocommie]

In regards to the motivations behind charity, I think they're more often than not genuine. On some level the bourgeoisie may be aware that what they do is exploitative, and they seek to alleviate the sickness of that exploitation with their own wealth and therefore "make amends" even as they continue to exploit people and keep them in that situation. In a way that is what Zizek was saying in that video above, I think.

But it's important to remember that it's not just the bourgeoise who support charities, it's everyone, even the working class. The other day a classmate of mine circulated a jar she was using to collect money for tsunami relief in Japan, and I put some money in it. Why? Because it will have some effect in making someone's life at least a little easier, even if it's not a holistic solution to all of Japan's problems.

I realize there is, among some leftists, a school of thought that any kind of charity or program meant to alleviate the harsh conditions of poverty should be somehow opposed by leftists because it "mollifies" the working class and prolongs the revolution, but I've always thought that was the most cynical, manipulative, and frankly, cold-blooded way of looking at things.

I have absolutely no illusions about the long-term effectiveness of NGO's, many of them employ full-time non-volunteer staff who draw a salary, and so only a given proportion of their received donations actually need to be used for their charitable purpose; in this sense charities in capitalism are very much like any other business, with the amount paid out to actually help people making up part of the charity's "overhead." But people are still being helped in the short term, and that's better than nothing. The crucial part is not to be misled about the fact that it's not actually going to change anything in the long run.

It's like Lao Tzu said, you give a man a fish he eats for a day, you teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime. But then as Marx said, you teach a man to fish, and you ruin a wonderful business opportunity.

[Rafiq]

charity, in my opinion, is just another form of control. The poor have to rely on the bourgeoisie feeding them.

In some cases, it could be the Bourgeoisie exerting their control over the masses, a form of humiliation, sometimes.

[gestalt]

Oscar Wilde outlined the purposes and poverty of charity a century ago in the Soul of Man Under Socialism (http://libcom.org/library/soul-of-man-under-socialism-oscar-wilde), most of it remains true today.

It is certainly a combination of a lot of factors mentioned so far, but also keep it in the context of the crises of capitalism. These are the moments in which the footing of the capitalist class is at its most perilous, any effort to keep the rabble sedated by demonstrating that their system can still care for the "less fortunate" while providing positive public relations in the media, if not outright advertising, might just quell any disturbance to the status quo.