Why Charity Doesn't Work

[myst]

I haven't read all the posts yet, but I wanted to say something about the difference between absolute poverty and relative poverty. Absolute poverty means when the person is in danger of dying because they don't have enough resources (food, health care, clean water). This is common in developing countries. It doesn't make a lot of sense to just teach a person to fish in this situation, because they don't have money to bribe the corrupt beaurocrat for a fishing license, as someone said. They don't have a place to cook the fish; they don't have anything.

Relative poverty is the kind of poverty you almost always find in developed countries. The family may have gone without meals, but it's not likely they will die of starvation. It makes more sense to focus on teaching them job skills or help them individually other ways (dealing with mental health issues, addiction, etc.). It's called relative because they are poor relative to the other people in their country, but not so poor that they're at the minimum possible for survival.

 

[myst]

How much can we balance it out, people like us who, for instance probably barely have enough left over after rent and groceries and car insurance and such? The smallest percentage of the population owns all the wealth.

Yeah, that bothers me. I know any amount I can ever give is dwarfed by what the richest few people in the world could give without even noticing. At this point, I'm not comfortable not giving anything, but my first few years after college when I earned less, I didn't even consider giving anything.

The poor aren't going to do anything about it because, yes, they are lulled with charity that keeps them dependant and thankful.

Maybe that's less true for people who are on the edge of dying from poverty...? Ken Saro-Wiwa has some short stories about a desperately poor fictional village in Nigeria and it definitely doesn't romanticize the personalities though. Most of the characters are pretty disgusting people, actually.

It's tragic. I don't accept this system, and yet, I admit I'm too afraid to challenge it.

Me too, pretty much. I wish I knew of political organizations where you could do more to combat the problem politically. Organizing letter writing campaigns to senators and congresspeople to vote one way or another doesn't seem like much. I guess it at least would me feel slightly less lazy and careless than doing nothing. I think Oxfam and other big charities organize some political action like this in various rich countries... the activities tend to be in the big cities though...

I don't know what else to do. I know of one person who was in a World Trade Organization protest. I don't see her enough to ask her about it though.

Anyway, when I'm too overwhelmed, taking it one step at a time seems better than nothing. I'm not really writing this as a reply to alt ctrl del, I just liked some of the things she said.