charity

[crimsonzephyr]

I was recently told that many communists don't believe in charity. why is this? i have always thought charity was a good thing.

all i can think of is that money should go to the revolutionary cause not charity. but i still don't understand

[Red_or_Dead]

Charity is a deception. Everytime when a rich guy gives money for the poor, most of the people think "oh, how nice of him", "he is really a great man", and all the usual shit.

Which is, needless to say, bollocks, as those who provide most charity are usualy the reason why there is poverty in the first place.

Of course, there are posibilites for lower classes to provide charity to the really poor people, and thats another matter alltogether. I think of it as solidarity with other people, who are far worse affected by the system, allthough most people dont have exactly that on their minds when they give for charity.

If I return to charity form the hands of the rich, thats pure hipocrisy. If they would really want to help, they would first have stop exploiting.

[crimsonzephyr]

okay, i was actually thinking that too. It seems to be the same concept as my step dad has a problem with. He will do a bunch of shit then go to church the next day and say "well i'm cleansed" and he goes on doing that shit again. Its like an endless process.

and like you said, charity organized or not, is not a bad thing if you have very little and somebody else has less to give to them. -of course. Like gandhi, he starved himself in order to give to others even though he had very little.

[Kronos]

Charity is a tricky thing. There are more pros than cons, about it. Here is how I see it. Welfare can be provided by either the state or by private organizations. When it is run by the state, it costs tax payers- the revolutionary characteristic of this form is that in theory tax payers will begin to complain about this and finally ask the big question- "why are there homeless people" for example. This consideration points them toward communist ideals. So in this case, 4.8 million frustrated tax payers might begin to look for the solution rather than waste money on merely treating the symptom. The solution of course is communism. There are no homeless people in a communist society.

When the welfare system is operated by private organizations which are not state owned, essentially you end up with capitalists exploiting workers to make money which he then gives a percentage of back to the lower classes. Donations, for example.

Also, here is the only value of Christianity as a revolutionary effect. Those capitalists who are Christian, and are motivated to "give in the name of the lord", yada, yada, are actually fooled into believing that they should do so. So although Christianity is bullshit....it works in the revolutions favor by tempting capitalists to donate to charity organizations. Call Christianity an expediency. It is a lie....but a useful lie thus far. We can play one enemy against another to our advantage. Christianity and capitalism are the enemy- therefore, let us use Christianity to scare the capitalists into giving charity. No?

[Demogorgon]

There is nothing wrong with charity in of itself. Charities can do good, and I like to give to charities that have a good track record for helping those who are very badly off as well as good at standing up to those in power. Working class solidarity and all that.

What I strongly object to is the notion that charity will somehow solve societies problems. It wont.

[Sentinel]

I was recently told that many communists don't believe in charity. why is this? i have always thought charity was a good thing.

Simple: socialists strive for a society with an effective enough collective welfare system and social safety net, that charity isn't necessary. Noone should ever have to rely on charity in a socialist society.

Charity also works to maintain the status quo -- the rich reckon they'll get away with stealing our labor power if they throw us enough crumbles, so that we are 'content'.

[quevivafidel]

I rather like how Oscar Wilde defined charity in "The Soul of Man Under Socialism"--"crumbs from a rich man's table." It's a good read. I'll quote more of it:
"The virtues of the poor may be readily admitted, and are much to be regretted. We are often told that the poor are grateful for charity. Some of them are, no doubt, but the best amongst the poor are never grateful. They are ungrateful, discontented, disobedient, and rebellious. They are quite right to be so. Charity they feel to be a ridiculously inadequate mode of partial restitution, or a sentimental dole, usually accompanied by some impertinent attempt on the part of the sentimentalist to tyrannise over their private lives. Why should they be grateful for the crumbs that fall from the rich man's table? They should be seated at the board, and are beginning to know it. As for being discontented, a man who would not be discontented with such surroundings and such a low mode of life would be a perfect brute. Disobedience, in the eyes of any one who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion. Sometimes the poor are praised for being thrifty. But to recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less. For a town or country labourer to practise thrift would be absolutely immoral. Man should not be ready to show that he can live like a badly-fed animal. He should decline to live like that, and should either steal or go on the rates, which is considered by many to be a form of stealing. As for begging, it is safer to beg than to take, but it is finer to take than to beg. No; a poor man who is ungrateful, unthrifty, discontented, and rebellious is probably a real personality, and has much in him. He is at any rate a healthy protest. As for the virtuous poor, one can pity them, of course, but one cannot possibly admire them. They have made private terms with the enemy and sold their birthright for very bad pottage. They must also be extraordinarily stupid. I can quite understand a man accepting laws that protect private property, and admit of its accumulation, as long as he himself is able under these conditions to realise some form of beautiful and intellectual life. But it is almost incredible to me how a man whose life is marred and made hideous by such laws can possibly acquiesce in their continuance."

I do think it's better to give at least something rather than to keep everything, but I laugh when people think celebrities and tycoons who adopt from third-world countries or give a little to charity are so giving. If they were so giving, they would lead a normal life and give more to these causes that supposedly mean so much to them.

[Kronos]

There is nothing wrong with charity in of itself.Sure something is wrong with it. It implies that somebody needs what they should already have, and that somebody should give to somebody else what they shouldn't have to give. Giving charity and receiving charity are two negative aspects of society.

I have been living in my truck for over a year. In that year, I have worked less than in the former fifteen years combined, that I have been a carpenter. It is because of my principles that I work as little as possible. If I am going to work, I'm gonna get a job, make some quick cash, and then get the hell outta there. When I don't have enough money to buy what I need, I take donations from various organizations...but I refuse to participate in a state welfare system because it costs working class tax payers. No food-stamps or cheap housing or anything like that. If I'm gonna take something, I'm either gonna steal it, or take it from some half-wit Christian bourgeois who thinks he'll make it into heaven by buying me dinner.

The place I go to to get a shower and a meal once and while is like a fucking circus. The staff are incompetent college kids and the homeless people there are useless trash. They are so entirely backward that one has to ask "are these people simply waiting to die"? I try to talk to them and defend them, to explain to them why they are there, why they are all drug addicts, why they all believe in God, why they are not properly educated, etc. I speak about communists ideals and they attack me. The irony is that I am on their side...and yet they are SO stupid they cannot begin to consider anything I say. Fuck em.