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I wrote this one in a text editor so as not avoid losing an entire post, like I did on the demonstrations one, and getting so fucked off that I never reply at all
Allow me to paraphrase: you're saying that charities which seek to provide social infrastructure are going to provide a poorer service, dollar-for-dollar, than an equivalent government operation, yes?
For large-scale projects that require country-wide strategy, yes. For smaller projects, possibly. I'm also saying that for some "unfashionable" problems they are unlikely to get those dollars in the first place.
Why, exactly?
Government departments are also subject to bureaucratic overheads, potential mismanagement, and the other pitfalls you mention. In fact, in some of those areas- like the overheads- charities are potentially far more 'competitive'.
Okay, here are a couple of reasons.
Charities don't have the reliability. While funding for public projects is sometimes shaky, compared to charities it's pretty solid. Charities are dependent on public opinion and their own PR, month-to-month. If they suddenly lose a source of funding, whoever they're supporting is in trouble. They also tend to provide regional services. If the people in your area don't see the need to fund a drug rehab centre, you don't get one. As well as that, government services can benefit from better public-sector borrowing rates.
There's quite a good bit in Captive State on this point which I pretty much agree with, with many examples.
Charities aren't part of an integrated system. Take the police. If the police get involved in a domestic violence case, they can at least get social services involved (at least they should) who can evaluate the situation, see whether the children are safe, provide information on refuges etc. If they had to rely on charities to do this, how would it happen? The cops would not have a standard procedure to follow, they'd have to rely on different people from different organisations, there would be regional differences...
Or disaster relief. If an earthquake hits, you need integration between police, fire services, medical services, housing, food distribution etc etc. The more you split these things up into subgroups the harder it becomes.
I feel that your distinction between charities which lobby and charities which 'do stuff' is false.
I'm not making that distinction, I'm distinguishing between two different activities that charities do.
As for 'small-scale'... I don't think that, for example, too many famine relief efforts could be called 'small-scale'. It entirely depends on the methods to hand.
I still think that the big famine relief projects would have been better handled if they had been done within the countries, but given the political realities of the situation that wasn't really an option.
And 'small-scale', in the hands of the right activists, can still be uncommonly effective- remember the publicity generated by the McLibel trial?
Small groups can be effective at creating publicity, sure, but that doesn't solve social infrastructure problems.
Even if I were to accept the hypothesis that charities were somehow too 'small' to change things, I would have to recognise that, just like large corporations, they are not bound to one country and therefore can be considered potential agents for the transmission of technology, best practice, and -crucially- idealogical change.
That I think is one of the advantages of charities, their transnational potential. Note that I said "country-wide" earlier because the infrastructure advantages of governmental groups disappear when they have to act across borders. There's little or no political discussion and negotiation that has to take place when an international charity is involved, which is why the Red Cross works well.
What we have in common here is, I think, a desire to arrive at an appropriately complex answer to the question. It's not good/bad but which charity, where your money's going to go, and what it's going to accomplish. These are the kind of questions that we should be asking.
My feeling is still that there is a hell of a lot of planet to save and just as many beings on that planet who desperately need help, and that inaction isn't an option.
I'm not going to disagree with that... charitable action is needed, it's a question of taking the appropriate action. Why build your own infrastructure when you can fix the one we've got? |
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