Missing the Point of Charity

Borrowing a line from Milton Friedman, Ted Rall says that it's time to "starve the beast"; Rall is not talking about the government, but about the collection of "private charities used by the government to justify the abdication of its duties to its citizens."  He argues:

Disaster relief is too important to be left to private fundraisers, with their self-sustaining fundraising expenses, administrative overhead (nine percent for the Red Cross) and their parochial, often religious, agendas. It's also way too expensive. In the final analysis, after the floodwaters have receded and the poor neighborhoods of New Orleans have been razed under eminent domain, major charities will be lucky if they've managed to raise one percent of the total cost of Katrina. Congress, recognizing the reality that only the federal government possesses the means to deal with the calamity, has already allocated $58 billion--over 70 times the amount raised by charities--to flood relief along the Gulf of Mexico. As Bush says, that's only a "down payment."

Cutting a check to the Red Cross isn't just a vote for irresponsible government. It's a drop in the bucket compared to what you'll end up paying for Katrina in increased taxes.

Granted, in terms of popularity of likelihood of success, trying to make a case against giving money to charities compares to lobbying against puppies. The impulse to donate, after all, is rooted in our best human traits. As we watched New Orleanians die of thirst, disease and anarchic violence in the face of Bush Administration disinterest and local government incompetence, millions of us did the only thing we thought we could to do to help: cut a check or click a PayPal button. Tragically, that generosity feeds into the mindset of the sinister ideologues who argue that government shouldn't help people--the very mindset that caused the levee break that turned Katrina into a holocaust and led to official unresponsiveness. And it is already setting the stage for the next avoidable disaster.  (HT: CT)

I think it's safe to assume that Rall does not embrace the principle of subsidiarity.  Even if the efforts of the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, and other private groups could be written off as largely symbolic compared to the government action necessary to restore the Gulf Coast, they are vitally important symbols in our society.  Disaster relief of this magnitude must be primarily a collective, top-down endeavor, at least in terms of funding.  But to marginalize the bottom-up efforts of motivated individuals and associations to meet real needs that have arisen in their midst is to disconnect the citizenry from the suffering around them.  One way I explain subsidiarity is by pointing out that, even if we could prove that all children would eat more nutritious meals if they were bussed three times a day to a central government agency for feeding, few (I hope) would support such an endeavor.  It's not just whether children receive proper nutrition, but who provides it to them.  In New Orleans, I expect the government to do most of the heavy lifting through funds coercively (and justifiably) collected from taxpayers, but I also want an evacuee to come face to face with a volunteer who hands her a meal that has been purchased with the few dollars that my daughter's kindergarten class raised. 

Rob