Doug makes a very compelling case that charity is counterproductive. I would like to post this with our charity link on LPSF. Looking at the charities that I have worked with, it carries a lot of weight. I would propose the direct mini loan organizations.
Hi Phil and All,
Of course I would not object to this article being posted in the Issues section of the LPSF website as an opinion from one of our members. Since I disagree with some of the key points in the article, I would be dismayed if it were posted as an "official" view of the LPSF.
The point of the Charities section of the LPSF website is to counter the general public's idea that Libertarians are Darwinian, uncaring individuals. Such an article would confirm the public's perception.
If, as a group, LPSF "votes" to acknowledge the Darwinian nature of libertarianism, and chooses to portray such a view on our website, so be it; but that has not been the case.
I am totally in favor of mini-loan organization also; and would suggest that Phil post his favorite ones in the LPSF website Charities section.
Regards,
Marcy
Yeah Marcy. True as it may be, I thought it came off sounding unnecessarily
harsh and objectivist. In fact, I don't recall even Any Rand stating that
the endowing to charities is immoral. Inefficient maybe, but only immoral
when facilitated through taxation or some other force. Yes?
With 12%+ unemployment, suggesting an official 'dog eat dog' approach may
harbor some ill will with those out of work. According to Casey - the ones
who weren't smart enough to prepare for an inherently flawed banking system
and credit collapse (i.e. 99.99% of the population?)
d
What points do you find objectionable??
Hi David,
Yes, and Yes. Rand said nothing against voluntary giving (none of anyone's beeswax). Shooting ourselves in the foot if we officially adopt the let them eat cake approach.
Marcy
Hi Phil,
The idea in my post was to point out that the article is anti-charity, and therefore, does not mesh with our decision to show the general public that we Libertarians are in favor or "private solutions" to challenges of need, private charity being one solution as we saw it at the time of the decision. My personal objections to any specific points in the article are irrelevant.
Marcy
Phil, my objection to the article is that it suggests that it is never appropriate to simply help a person -- as if every person in need is an able-bodied-and-minded adult.
One of "my" charities on our web page is Larkin Street Youth Shelters. These kids can't pull themselves up by their bootstraps on micro-loans. They're just kids. They still need adult help. They just don't have parents who are willing/able to help them, so I think it's good for other of us adults in the community to step up and contribute to seeing that these kids aren't on the street turning tricks and getting addicted to drugs.
In short, I get the impression from that article that Casey is a typical middle-aged suburban white guy who has no clue about the real world and the problems in it.
Rob
Thank you so much, Rob. I just had dinner with my daughter, and we happened to talk about some of her her friends, who are either afflicted with what she calls "liberal white guy guilt" or "NIMBY", neither has the grasp of what she learned while volunteering for Prius (school for little kids whose parents are poor but want their kids to succeed), Oasis (counseling first generation college students on the basics of college life), The Tenderloin Clinic (an after school place where kids can get tutoring with their homework). These programs get some funding from the government; I would like to see more private involvement.
BTW NO ONE in our group is either a guilty liberal white guy or a NIMBY. But I thought I would share with you a perspective on what private, voluntary effort can do.
Marcy
Sometimes I start to write an email response and get distracted and never finish them! Often when I find these unfinished messages later they don't seem worth sending so long after being started and I just delete them, but other times they do. So here are some comments from a thread at the beginning of this month...
Marcy,
I agree. Doug Casey comes across as lacking compassion and I don't find his remarks in the Q&A particularly helpful to our cause. Some of his claims I find factually dubious, but the worst of it is that it would be difficult to come up with an economic message more alienating to people on the left. If Casey were better known, he would probably be caricatured as a mean-spirited Gordon Gecko (the "greed is good" tycoon in the movie "Wall Street") figure in no short order.
Here are some specific objectionable points: