I want to give them money but since my childhood my parents pretty much told me that they are all either faking it or are too lazy to go to work for money. I mean, I guess they can go to work but not everyone gets accepted to work as easy as it sounds like.
I like Kant’s take on this. He argued (roughly, by memory) that giving to people begging on the street directly was a selfish act, as it’s satisfying our own need to feel better about ourselves more than the needs of the homeless population, and would lead to an unfair distribution giving more money to those who are talented at evoking empathy rather than those that might need it the most. He argued that the unselfish thing to do would be to donate to the cause indirectly, responding not to the emotional response in the moment but to a rational consideration of the needs of the homeless population.
I think he has a point. That said, there’s nothing wrong with being selfish every now and then, especially not if your selfishness gives someone a warm meal. And empathy is a healthy human reaction.
Your parents seem to have failed to grasp the challenges facing the homeless population. A better take would be “don’t give that guy money, start donating regularly to a local charity instead and help make sure that help is given to all those who need it”.
Oh, and also, rally for political change.
Kant had a point there, but I think he also fails to address the problem.
The existence of charitable organizations means that the government has failed that group of people. Charitable organizations are extremely inefficient and sometimes are prone to the exact problems he brings up with donating directly to individuals, or they may prioritize certain individuals with certain religious beliefs over others.
Charitable organizations need to be folded and replaced with government programs. We don’t need to be paying CEOs salaries when we’re just trying to help someone on the street.
I’ve been involved as a treasurer for a number of “medium” charities in Australia. Most recently one providing free legal services to the disadvantaged, and another running a refuge for homeless youth.
As an aside, bear in mind that I as a treasurer as well as the entire board are volunteers - well qualified and experienced professionals donating their time to ensure that the organisation is run efficiently and is maximising the benefit to the community.
Your comments really grind my gears. They’re born of shallow social media type thinking. These falsehoods are commonly used as a “reason” why one ought not to donate to charities.
Certainly there are overpaid CEOs, but these are a minority. Recently the charity running the refuge got a new CEO. He had been a police superintendent. He took a pay cut of about two thirds in order to be our CEO. He said that he had spent most of his career locking people up, and wanted to spend the last part of his career changing kids trajectories before they got involved with the law.
Imagine saying that this organisation would be more efficient of it were subsumed by the government, so the CEO-equivalent could be paid 3x as much.
I read @bustrpoindextr as not criticizing the charities directly, but rather reflect that they represent a systematic failure of government structures. We shouldn’t need homeless shelters or soup kitchens - there shouldn’t be homelessness or hunger. Taxation and sensible public spending should render charity unnecessary.
Which is a nice thought - I wouldn’t judge people for giving their money to political interest organizations promoting solidarity rather than directly to charities.
It’s a fine balance between patching the flaws of the system and trying to replace it all together. In some extreme cases charity might make the system just bearable enough that it’s not overthrown, which might occasionally do more harm than good in the long run.
The thing about “Don’t do X, because we SHOULD do Y”
Is that nobody’s doing Y, and we’re nowhere close to getting there, so, until we are, we should support the X.
You trust the government enough to properly provide for those most in need, but the government has pushed the work onto the very charities that you are arguing against. The government leaks tens of billions annually on preserving the needs of the richest members of our society, a quarter of which could have made a massive impact on world hunger.
I don’t think the government or private organizations generally have anyone’s best interest in mind when they do what they do, besides those who have the most influence.
Government programs are literally no better when it comes to administrative costs. In fact way worse in the vast majority of cases.
CEO’s are only a thing with very large charities on the order of the Red Cross, (or rich people money laundering charities). Your local shelter or food bank isn’t going to be having a high overhead, in fact it’s going to be much lower than the government agencies because of almost entirely free volunteer work. The point where the government is more efficient is due to the fact that welfare fraud is a crime, so people are naturally less inclined to lie to receive benefits.