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34 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined 7 Jul \ parent \ on: Charity - "More Harm Than Good" (from the book Family Fortune - by Bill Bonner) alter_native
I don't disagree and this is the motivation behind the Effective Altruism movement, although my understanding is that they're struggling to live up to that name.
What I find lacking in the "charity is pointless/harmful" case is that it doesn't really give people with resources and a desire to help others any answers about what to do with their resources. As an economist, it's hard for me to believe that simply transferring purchasing power to poorer people is not going to improve their situation.
Now, I can certainly believe that there are more efficient ways to help them, like investing in profitable local industries. However, there's no reason to think that I, or any other non-specialist, have any talent for identifying those.
Robert Lupton actually has another book on this very topic - Charity Detox: What Charity Would Look Like If We Cared About Results.
His main point is that instead of handouts, people should always be required to actually do something, to receive the charity.
For instance, instead of a food bank, have a food co-op, with subsidized products, but where people were required to actually do some work, in order to receive the benefits.
This whole idea was REALLY common until recently. It was rare for the poor to be given a complete handout. For instance, here's a quote from a book I read recently (context - a horse had just broken a leg, and had to be shot):
When the trench was dug deep enough, Father pushed the carcass into it, feet up, and covered it, tamping in the soil all around.
After that, when he had an indigent or a tramp to feed, he often told him to dig an hour or so on this trench, which finally extended to the full length of the lot.
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That's fine. I don't think there's one correct answer, though. Models like this help solve various incentive and information problems that come from trying to deliver aid at scale. Charity doesn't have to be mass delivered, though.
I'm thinking about Donor See, which Tom Woods talked about a few times. If I learn about some poor kid whose parents can't afford a pair of glasses and I want to buy them as a gift, I really don't need her parents to do chores in return. The important thing is the credibility of the program, because the kid's situation needs to actually be as described.
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