Ramnath wants me to know what I think of “Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists”, the link to the first chapter of which he has helpfully provided.<\/p>\n
Now it is very difficult for me to disagree with something I agree with for the most part, but I will do it nonetheless. But in the meantime, just to warm up, I will pick on an easier target.
\n
\nThough I am an evil capitalist, I sometimes donate to charity.
\nNow I don’t wish to give indiscriminately. I think that some causes are more deserving than others. I would be very unhappy if the money I donate goes into subsidising people who won’t work, rather than those who can’t work. I would be more willing to bail people out of temporary emergencies. I would love to give to people who are too proud to accept money, because I know that they will then work themselves into a position where they won’t have to ask for money again. I woud love to pay for children’s education, because I think that it is an investment that will invariably pay off. <\/p>\n
Not everyone who pays for charity will have my priorities. Some may indulge in chequebook charity just for publicity, to make themselves feel good or to make sure they go to heaven after they die. They won’t be as interested in making sure that their money goes only to deserving people as I do. They may not be mindful of the fact that charity often makes the receiver dependent on charity.<\/p>\n
In any case, my time being more valuable than my money, I also may not have enough time to make sure that the organization I donate to will spend the money according to my priorities. It might be corrupt. It might be paying its officials too much. It might be careless about who receives the money.<\/p>\n
So yes, I acknowledge that there are problems with private charity.<\/p>\n
A bloke called Daniel Brett<\/a> (via Jivha<\/a>) thinks he has a solution. The solution, unfortunately, begins with the three golden words: “The Government Should”<\/p>\n The government should<\/i> collect from me in taxes the amount I would have given in charity and spend it on “food and agricultural programmes”. <\/p>\n How are these going to work, these “food and agricultural programmes”? How are the implementors of those programmes to be held accountable? How do we ensure that those programmes do not in turn make its beneficiaries dependent on government aid? No word of course. The words “The government should” have a magical quality to them. If the government should, it will.<\/p>\n It is bad enough that he turns the libertarians’ personal-responsibility argument on its head. He haughtily points to problems with private charity, problems that capitalists have been pointing out for years. It is worse when he blindly and unthinkingly assumes that government action is the solution, without even thinking of whether the solution he proposes has exactly the same problems that he has identified in the original situation. Ramnath wants me to know what I think of “Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists”, the link to the first chapter of which he has helpfully provided. Now it is very difficult for me to disagree with something I agree with for the most part, but I will do it nonetheless. But in the meantime, just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ravikiran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nA little humility is all that I am asking for here. Something like “Yes, I know that it is tough to get the government to do what I want it to do, but here is a way in which I think it can be made to work…” would have increased his credibility. But I suppose that I am asking for too much.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"