How rich are you on a global scale?

[El_Machinae]

It's more of a philosophical position : it's a job for society, not for unrelated individuals. Charity is to welfare state what vigilantes are to law enforcement.

It's also an excuse to do nothing. You vote for social welfare, Commodore votes against it, and .... we have to wait four more years.

The State literally can never do a sufficient job. It's an excuse to do nothing.


The MSF was the first-in during the Ebola crisis. Good thing they didn't handwring claiming "golly, the government better do something, quick, we had better establish a functioning constitutional democracy and create a legitimate taxation base ... "

 

[Lexicus]

The State literally can never do a sufficient job. It's an excuse to do nothing.

On the contrary, private charity can never do a sufficient job, only the State can.

The MSF was the first-in during the Ebola crisis. Good thing they didn't handwring claiming "golly, the government better do something, quick, we had better establish a functioning constitutional democracy and create a legitimate taxation base ... "

Well, it is a very different situation when you actually have the skills to be a doctor. If you don't have useful skills like that, your ability to do stuff is pretty limited.

It's also completely silly to argue that a functioning government wouldn't have been able to respond to the Ebola crisis more effectively than private charities.

 

[El_Machinae]

Parasites?

I don't consider his stance parasitical, unless he moochers off of my contribution ( as someone unwilling to pay for his externalities, it seems likely, but that's deeper into the conversation than we should go ). It's mostly free freeriding, which means things aren't as good as they could be.

 

[Farm Boy]

Well, it wasn't aimed specifically at Commodore and I'm still trying to decide if predatory is more accurate, but you're right. The high dive isn't really appealing. Belly flops hurt anyways.

 

[El_Machinae]

Well, it is a very different situation when you actually have the skills to be a doctor. If you don't have useful skills like that, your ability to do stuff is pretty limited.

Except give money obviously. Money is a lot like using your labour usefully. The doctor's cannot donate their time if no one feeds them.

It's also completely silly to argue that a functioning government wouldn't have been able to respond to the Ebola crisis more effectively than private charities.

I wasn't saying that. I was saying there was an onus to respond to the crisis using charity. The State will *never* be sufficient.

Of course charities will always be insufficient. But that's not an excuse to refuse to donate to charity. There's no alternative other than a blend. I'm not saying the state shouldn't act. I'm saying charity needs to.

 

[Lexicus]

Except give money obviously. Money is a lot like using your labour usefully. The doctor's cannot donate their time if no one feeds them.

It's kind of like using your labor usefully, except that if I'm a doctor and I go to work in an ebola outbreak area, I know that no one is skimming some of my labor off the top. That is emphatically not the case when I give money to a charity.

The State will *never* be sufficient.

Depending on the problem, though, I just flat-out don't agree with this. The State will never be sufficient to solve all imaginable problems, but the State can absolutely completely abolish poverty, homelessness, involuntary unemployment, etc.

 

[El_Machinae]

It's kind of like using your labor usefully, except that if I'm a doctor and I go to work in an ebola outbreak area, I know that no one is skimming some of my labor off the top. That is emphatically not the case when I give money to a charity.

Then find a better charity. Money is skimmed off the top of all our purchases, it's a rule of life. First Worlders also consume more than they generate, once you consider natural capital. Another rule of life.

But it doesn't matter if some is skimmed. You give $1 to have a $0.85 land where it's needed, or else that $0.85 doesn't land. If you spent that same money on a burger, then the crisis doesn't get assistance AND a First Worlder continues to consume more than they produce AND some gets skimmed.

Donating money is very similar to donating labour. If you have any type of comparative advantage, if can be vastly more beneficial, even.

But the doctor cannot go if he has no food. He cannot go if he has a mortgage. He needs supplies. He needs pay. When MSF ran into the Ebola crisis, they were screaming over their shoulders back at us begging for us to send supplies. And we under-reacted, mainly because too many people don't know how to give to charity.

Depending on the problem, though, I just flat-out don't agree with this. The State will never be sufficient to solve all imaginable problems, but the State can absolutely completely abolish poverty, homelessness, involuntary unemployment, etc.

By your (frankly wrong) reasoning, it is also acceptable to be against all state interventions as well. Because I (again) know that someone is skimming. It's a rule of life. The State can only attack these problem, but there is an underlying cost of inefficiency and graft. It's a tool in the toolkit, but that's all it is. One of a set of tools. It's not a sufficient tool, and using it as a reason to not help is merely a rationalization.

 

[AmazonQueen]

I tend not to give for charities that work in the UK and do things that I feel our government should be paying for (although I have volunteered for some from time to time).
Just encourages the Tory skinflints to cut back if people give.
Things like famine relief or refugee crisis though the government will take ages to act and drop the issue as soon as the media loses interest.
Development too. They won't invest in sustainable development that helps the poorest. They'll spend it on a big project that turns out to be a white elephant but probably gets some contracts for British companies.

 

[Lexicus]

By your (frankly wrong) reasoning, it is also acceptable to be against all state interventions as well. Because I (again) know that someone is skimming. It's a rule of life. The State can only attack these problem, but there is an underlying cost of inefficiency and graft. It's a tool in the toolkit, but that's all it is. One of a set of tools. It's not a sufficient tool, and using it as a reason to not help is merely a rationalization.

I do give money to several different charities, but I'm not really convinced that doing so is particularly helpful. It's not so much the administrative overhead itself that is the problem but rather the absurdly lopsided political economy of the whole business.

But it doesn't matter if some is skimmed. You give $1 to have a $0.85 land where it's needed, or else that $0.85 doesn't land.

From what I understand in most cases it's closer to the opposite proportions: you give $1 for fifteen cents of it to hopefully land somewhere.

Really though the problem isn't the skimming per se, it's the fact that charity can ultimately only reinforce the unequal political economy that causes the problems charity is supposedly trying to solve.

 

[El_Machinae]

Really though the problem isn't the skimming per se, it's the fact that charity can ultimately only reinforce the unequal political economy that causes the problems charity is supposedly trying to solve.

Different charities have different mandates. MSF literally has a different mandate than the various governments have. The MS Society literally has a different mandate than the NIH has.

Again, the doctor volunteering for the MSF needs money. So people who say "I can't help, I'm not a doctor" are making a fundamental error.

The State cannot possibly do all the good that a combination of state and (wise) charity can do. The evidence that the State can tackle the underlying issues sufficiently is completely lacking. The skimming and graft will necessarily be too high. The speed of response is too slow.

You know, if you'd rather just give (vastly) poorer people money directly, you can. There's very little skimming. Very little waste. Just direct empowerment of people vastly poorer than us.

From what I understand in most cases it's closer to the opposite proportions: you give $1 for fifteen cents of it to hopefully land somewhere.

And fifteen cents landing on time is better than the dollar that never arrives. Some problems need sufficient investment. I cannot give a refugee camp 100 calories per person and expect it to survive a month. They need a thousand calories per day per person. If people don't give sufficiently, the 100 calories that I give end up being insufficient. And if people don't give on time, the 1000 calories you give in a month end up being insufficient as well.

"Feeding refugees aggravates the issue". No. It was insufficiently investing in their failing state that caused the issue. Me eating a hamburger instead of donating is what's going to aggravate the next issue.

We're so much wealthier than we realize. And we under-invest in mitigating the harms that can be solved.

 

[Lexicus]

"Feeding refugees aggravates the issue".

I do feed refugees via CARE. When the Saudi royal family gives $2 million to the Clinton foundation to supposedly feed refugees in Haiti, I'm skeptical that accomplishes much.

Me eating a hamburger instead of donating is what's going to aggravate the next issue.

Sorry, but trying to pin responsibility for global inequality on first world people who eat hamburgers is a losing proposition. Let's take some of the money away from the eight men who own half the world's wealth, shall we?

 

[El_Machinae]

Sorry, but trying to pin responsibility for global inequality on first world people who eat hamburgers is a losing proposition. Let's take some of the money away from the eight men who own half the world's wealth, shall we?

I'm not trying to pin responsibility. I'm saying it compounds the problem. It's also something that an individual person has immediate jurisdiction over in real-time. Choosing a hamburger over a donation very much does not disempower those 8 men. It's destructive overconsumption. And it's a lost opportunity to use your wealth to help someone vastly weaker.

I'm saying that there a moral onus towards charity. And I am saying both that the State cannot provide sufficiently to remove that onus AND I am saying that it is an excuse to rationalize away the onus.

But yes, First World overconsumption is a driving factor in the destruction of our natural capital. Frankly, choosing hamburgers over wise spending is part of the problem.

 

[Old Hippy]

Sorry, but trying to pin responsibility for global inequality on first world people who eat hamburgers is a losing proposition. Let's take some of the money away from the eight men who own half the world's wealth, shall we?

global inequality ??
shall we decide how much money is ''some of the money'' first
then when their are still poor people decide who next to take "some of the money from"
then decide how much we take from you....
According to the CIA, the total amount of money in the world is $80 trillion if you include "broad money."
Nov 17, 2017
which leaves about $40 trillion for the poorest 50% of people in the world
or on 2012 figures
The total value of world income is closing in on $70 trillion (£43.9tn) per year, and
there are seven billion people in the world, so the average income is heading towards $10,000 (£6,273) per person per year .Mar 29, 2012 so something about $5000 income per person per year if we take all of the rich peoples money which would mean every person in the US alone would be below the Federal US poverty line of $12000 in 2017

 

[El_Machinae]

He's more talking assets. There's a tremendous wealth disparity. It means people cannot get out of debt, and they cannot earn income anywhere near their productivity.

It's harder to figure out when using pure assets. If we took all of Bezos' shares and handed them out, the value of those shares wouldn't change and neither would the calculus of how much their employees should earn. But poor people would trade them for money, and wealthy people wouldn't.

 

[Traitorfish]

It's also an excuse to do nothing. You vote for social welfare, Commodore votes against it, and .... we have to wait four more years.

The State literally can never do a sufficient job. It's an excuse to do nothing.

Five centuries of charity didn't do as much for the health and security of the British public as five years of reform under a socialist government.

 

[Lexicus]

I'm saying that there a moral onus towards charity.

And I'm saying there's a moral onus toward supporting redistributive policy. I remember once you said you disliked my brand of politics because of my "willingness to hurt". What passed unremarked was your "willingness to hurt" by tolerating the status quo

 

[El_Machinae]

Five centuries of charity didn't do as much for the health and security of the British public as five years of reform under a socialist government.

Of course not. Because they're different scales. Charity floats at, what?, 2.5% of income on average? Rearranging 10% of the economy is just a bigger number. Never mind the different mandates and efficiencies available.

Just because 'the State' can do something, maybe, later doesn't impact the thrust of what I am saying. Your insight "the State is the better tool for some of these issues" is uncontested. I agree. But you've read enough of what I have said to know what I am saying in counter-point.

And I'm saying there's a moral onus toward supporting redistributive policy.

Sure. I never disagreed. Your incorrect statement that I confronted was here. Your statement wasn't the inverse of what I was saying. You also framed it to make it wrong.

On the contrary, private charity can never do a sufficient job, only the State can.

.
Your second incorrect statement is here.

Well, it is a very different situation when you actually have the skills to be a doctor. If you don't have useful skills like that, your ability to do stuff is pretty limited.

None of my stance has been about whether or not we should push for the government to do a better or more complete job. My stance was "the government should be doing that" is the rationalization of people who won't give money but claim to say they'd be willing to pay higher taxes.

 

[Lexicus]

Well, I do give money to charity yet I don't believe charity can actually solve problems, would be willing to pay higher taxes, and reiterate my belief that only the State can actually mobilize sufficient resources to solve many of the problems tackled by charities.

 

[El_Machinae]

Well, (1)I do give money to charity yet (2) I don't believe charity can actually solve problems, (3) would be willing to pay higher taxes, and (4) reiterate my belief that only the State can actually mobilize sufficient resources to solve many of the problems tackled by charities.

I agree with all four points.

My only quibble is that I think that charity can solve problems at the individual level, and those matter. The recipient of the polio vaccine is vaccinated whether the technician was paid for out of a WHO grant or out of a Rotatry Int'l grant. The MSF emergency responder needed an N95 mask to rush in, and it didn't matter that it was paid for out of charity funds. In areas that have compounding returns, a dollar donated today is more valuable than a dollar donated tomorrow.

 

[Lexicus]

Fair, I would just call that "ameliorating" problems rather than solving them, if that makes sense.