By serendipity we came across two interesting articles on charity and charities this weekend. The first comes from Brendan O’Neill of Spiked, a summary of his lecture to the Liberty League last month attacking the concept of ‘the poor’ and the moralising of those who purport to help them and the perceived ‘underclass’. “We should be super-sceptical whenever we hear the phrase ‘the underclass’… because I can guarantee you that every time you hear those phrases, you will discover far more about the person doing the talking than you will about the people being talked about” O’Neill’s argument is that there is no hard academic research-based evidence for an underclass – merely anectodal - “…what we have today is a situation where all sorts of activists and thinkers basically go fishing for anecdotes in ‘underclass’ communities and then use those anecdotes to justify their own Victorian-style campaigns of pity or condemnation”. ‘The poor’, he says, are the fodder the political and chattering classes use to promote their pet campaigns; they see in the downtrodden an excuse to intervene in people’s lives – “…more parenting classes, more relationship education, more psychological analysis, more food advice, more dog-training expertise… all of this and more is now offered to ‘the poor’, as every area of their lives becomes fair game for the meddling of experts and emissaries from the welfare state”. Now of course this does not mean that there no poor people. There are. But all the intervention – and it comes from all sides of the political spectrum these days – does is to increase reliance on the welfare state. O’Neill maintains the constant deluge telling people how to live their lives saps the individual will, takes away any spirit of community and reinforces the message that the state can do it better. Worth a read. The second , more practical thought on charities comes from Sam Bowman writing for the other libertarian think tank, the Adam Smith Institute. No-one these days holds any brief for bankers except their wives and families, but the ASI is against the Tobin – or as it prefers, the Robin Hood – Tax on financial transactions, because it will hit pensions and savers every bit as much, if not harder, than the bankers, and could destroy London as the financial capital of Europe. Yet leading charities support it. Bowman says those who give to charity expect their money to go where it is most needed, not towards funding a political campaign. His list is quite long and features the Salvation Army and Save the Children. Christmas is coming. You might wish to reflect before putting your money in the tin. |
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