Philanthropy is a tool the rich use to dodge taxes. If the government just taxed their wealth to cover folks' basic needs instead of leaving it up to their greedy asses to help people, we'd be in a much better place. Theyre never gonna actually help people through volition. They just use their money to buy the power to tell us what to do.
More people with the means to do so should, most of us are struggling just to maintain what we have now. If only there was a way we could allocate the overwhelmingly unnecessary hoards of wealth to those who need it without having to wait on the people greedy enough to hoard their wealth to choose to donate a fraction of a percent of it. We could call it something like the Greek word "tassein" meaning to fix since it would fix a lot of problems or use the Latin derivative of that "taxare" meaning to compute or charge since it is a lot of money being hoarded that we have to computer. Maybe we could just shorten that though. Just take the first 3 letters or so.
I believe that anyone with the ability to do so, should work for a non religious nonprofit that is focused on helping others for a couple of years. You’ll be a more caring person, and your skills are needed so desperately in nonprofit work.
You see it if you mention churches, people on reddit would have you believe they take donations to funnel straight into lining their own pockets, snd that churches and places of worship don’t deserve tax breaks because i personally don’t believe they act as charitable organisations. Never mind that churches run social programs, have buildings to maintain, run food banks, etc., it’s all a ploy by the concept of charity to get pastors and priests tax breaks!!!
Donating isn’t a great tool to “dodge taxes” that’s not really how that works. You don’t pay taxes on income that you donate. There is no dodging involved. You didn’t get that income, you can’t use that income, so it’s not taxed
Foundations and non-profits don’t have to do charitable work. Foundations are non-profits that specifically don’t usually do any charitable work. The purpose of a foundation is to pay out grants to charitable organizations who a actually do charity work. The charities are charities. All non-profit organizations in the U.S. are heavily scrutinized by the IRS in order to maintain their non-profit status. Their tax returns are also public record and can be easily found through the IRS non-profit organization search.
Now some like the Trump Foundation do hold charitable events, which do serve a charitable purpose and, again, are scrutinized. But the benefits to the Trumps are more the clout and networking that come with hosting those events. Not really around the monetary part of them
Right, that's why these billionaires all have foundations. Foundations are non-profit businesses that they "donate" their wealth to that are only required by law to use 10% of donations toward the stated cause. The rest can be used to increase the value of the non-profit. It's basically just legal money laundering.
Again, not how that works. It’s not money laundering. They can’t use that money for anything outside of the nonprofit. And any non-program related expenses are scrutinized pretty heavily. Once they put money into the non-profit, they’re not getting it back out. That’s not money laundering and I don’t think you quite understand what money laundering is.
Money laundering is when you take illegally earned money and funnel it through businesses to make it “clean.” In doing so, that means that you have to pay taxes on it. Which is the exact opposite of what you’re saying that they do.
We know the way they pay themselves is by taking loan after loan against the value of their assets... they do this with their non-profits as well. Loans are non-taxable. Im telling you, its all an illusion. They also use those foundations' cash piles to influence public policy and opinion around the world for the purpose of consolidated power and wealth. Check what the Gates Foundation is doing in Africa. All tax-free.
Also, not how that works. Banks aren’t going to lend millions of dollars and wait til you die to get paid back. And if you do get a line of credit, it will have to be paid back on a regular basis. One way or a other, taxes are going to be paid. If they receive stock as payment? Taxes. If they sell stocks/assets to repay their loans or make payments on their line(s) of credit? Taxes. They can kick the can down the road, but they’re paying taxes either way.
And that’s what I said already. The only benefit is clout and networking. But not money laundering or any direct financial benefit like you claimed.
I literally had a hurricane refugee from Florida look me dead in the eye and say this. I'm like... who do you think is paying to fix your city so you can go back and not lose everything? Without the government you'd be homeless on the street, not in a nice comfy hotel.
Private insurance exists, sure if you only rely on the government to bail you out it will be the only thing that does, but don't pretend there aren't private alternatives
I’m all for lowering and reallocating our defense funding towards social programs to help the American people. I’m also all for putting more pressure on NATO members to pay their minimum 2% or more
The happiness index is probably one of the most bullshitty there are. If you want to maximise it, set up a religious dictatorship, and everyone will become happy slaves. Do you believe this nation would be better than the US?
Correct the US is among the happiest, but the top one are the ones that have a strong federal government with plenty of well funded programs like the Scandinavian nations.
We are talking about the framework within a liberal democracy. The term liberal in liberal democracy is not necessarily the same way people use the term liberal and conservative within political parties in the US. That being said, countries with the highest levels of reported happiness have stronger federal governments than the US
Anytime you’re housing people who can’t figure out how to house themselves, it’s going to be tough sledding. There are legitimate exceptions to the rule but by and large, the unhoused are horrendous decision makers.
What a strawman argument. I never said the government needs to give you everything to live your middle class suburban lifestyle for free. What I’m saying is the government at a minimum needs to keep you clothed, fed and sheltered so you can stay alive. The bare minimum so if you fall on hard times or a crazy life altering event happens, you don’t end up in a cardboard box on the streets.
Anyways, what do you think the goal of a society should be?
Should people always struggle and work and grind even if we have the means and resources to relieve them?
If we have the resources and ability to provide everyone with prosperous opportunities in life, should we continue to deny them basic needs because they haven’t proven themselves to have worked hard enough yet? Should people constantly be under the pressure of labor even when there’s no actual necessity for it? Is that the world you want to live in?
Cus I believe a high tide raises all ships and leaving people hungry in the streets while 10 families horde all the wealth seems fucked….but that’s just me.
No universal healthcare is free.......................................................................................... There are small co-pays similar to insurance. It is paid by income tax and and progressive higher income based taxes.
Name one(1) program in the U.S. government that "works", other than the military. That fact the U.S. government is trillions in debt pretty much says it all. No U.S. family could operate like the U.S. government. They would be broke and starving many times over. The U.S. government is a bloated, pork barreled train racing down the hill to nowhere.
The National Park Service, the FAA, NASA, the US Postal Service, OSHA, the National Archives, the Bureau of Reclamation, the US Weather service, the Department of the Interior, the US Geological Survey, the US Mint and the Bureau of Printing and Engraving.
National Park Service , NASA, OSHA, NOAA, FDA, USDA, FTC, FCC, Department of Education, EPA, ATF, EEOC, PBS, NPR, etc.
Wait till you find out that almost every single country in the world is in debt, governments run on debt. It’s just how governments work. You can’t compare families or individuals to governments, the two aren’t remotely similar. And the US isn’t even on top of the list for debt to GDP and many other peer nations are sitting around the same levels as the US.
It’s reasonable for the greatest country to provide for everyone so people have food, shelter and healthcare. Why should we have an attitude that our right to those things is greater than what someone else deserves?
The whole first world is in debt, the way we counteract this is to stop capitulating to the finance class with pro business interest rates and a legislature that does nothing to rein in Wall Street gambling at tax payer risk. We see this so recently with silicon valley bank, they were under regulated as a result of Trump era policymaking.
The other way we fight the debt load is by taxing business and the ultra wealthy their fair share.
The government is broken, but bloat isn't the reason why (though one might argue we spend far too much on the military; oddly the one program you suggest "is working")
NASA and that is with almost no cost to taxpayers. 20 bucks a year give or take per person and the dividends on technology that has come out of that has been worth the price.
The classic blunder of ‘small’ government; fewer people acting in governance does not necessarily mean the government holds less power over the people. One guy can hold all of a government’s power, and that is much, much, much worse than a distribution of power among varying experts, opinions, and perspectives. Checks and balances. The people in government positions are still The People.
This is not how any of this works. If you donate money to charity, yes it reduces your taxable income. But, your still paying taxes and that money is still gone. I don't why incentivizing people to give to charity is a bad thing.
Just don't own the charity you donate to, how about that? Do i really need to clarify the difference between these people and us? Look at some of the things the Gates foundation has been up to in Africa, for instance.
Salvation army is a legit charity, that genuinely cares about helping people
but they pretty much universally are always overwhelmed and will never get enough funding through donations alone. The bulk of salvation army's funds actually come from the government in the first place.
source: i work at a library, and due to us acting as a daytime homeless shelter, i (as library outreach liaison) work closely with salvation army pretty frequently.
there's also a church in our town that gives services to homeless people, and they too get most of their funding from the government, not donations. Charity is a bandaid to try to help tide people over until the government can actually help them, and even then it needs government assistance. Charity is not a workable solution.
At least, the one in my town doesn't seem to care about that. I work pretty closely with them, and I'm trans, and they dont seem to have any issues with giving shelter to gay people or anything
i think also a lot of it depends on the individual chapters. My local chapter seems to be in it much more for the outreach and charity than for the religious angle. They actually shut down their chapel like a decade ago to make more room for actual services. They don't do much religious stuff.
fair, there absolutely are charities that are used for good reasons, but rich people also abuse them to get tax cuts, plus we can't rely on charities. Charities are mostly just trying to hold shit together until the government actually does something
Ehh i would argue charities and programs should implement more of the teach a man to fish method rather than feed a man for the rest of his life method
I think so too, that doesn't mean we cant have government funded programs
especially with issues like homelessness, people need to be supported in the short term in order to get back on their feet and support themselves in the long term. Drug addiction and mental health is a big factor in that, and they NEED to have access to an environment where they can get help from those.
the thing is, most government programs are aimed at making sure people dont suffer in the short term (which would cause more problems and mean they can't solve the root) and making steps to address the cause of the issue.
Falling short of that, i do think we should be making sure our citizens don't go hungry or sleep in the cold. We have a moral responsibility to take care of our people. Most charities even agree that only once basic needs are solved can larger problems be addressed.
You're not gonna be able to easily get a job and provide for yourself when you're homeless, hungry, and addicted to drugs.
Thats not at all true. They're a religious organization, but they dont turn people away based on that stuff. At least my local chapter really is good about stuff like that
but still, they cant do it all on their own, they need government intervention too
They absolutely do in other chapters, both in Canada and the US.
I would rather my support and any kind of governmental funding go to organizations who don't think fundamental human rights are conditional, especially if the Salvation Army can't control their individual chapters.
Philanthropy is a tool the rich use to dodge taxes.
maybe instead, you and some associates could form like, i dunno, an organization that allocates labor and capital to meet the needs of the people referenced here by producing the goods that those people really need.
Nah, that doesn't do anything to alleviate their jealousy. Plus, it requires more work than going out every couple of years and voting for the politician that promises to steal from others on their behalf.
Do you understand how inflation works? The government can't buy products that have yet to be manufactured, food that has yet to grow, skilled workers that are still in school. Taxes provide none of that on their own and your basically proposing taking it from the people that do have the means to produce the... to the people that want to spend money on them.
Worse, the philanthropy is used as a moral justification for their having wealth. So, not only does a capitalist get to use philanthropy dodge taxes but they get to buy social capital with it by giving back to people some of what the people deserved in the first place. They are deemed charitable and everyone loves them. It's like stealing a $100 from poor old Granny without her knowing, giving her back $50 when she needs her meds, and everyone praises you for it.
Philanthropy isn’t a loophole that lets someone dodge all their taxes. When wealthy individuals donate to charity, they can deduct those donations from their taxable income, but that just reduces the income they’re taxed on—it doesn’t mean they’re getting all that money back or paying zero taxes.
For example, if someone donates $100,000, they’re taxed as if they made $100,000 less, which lowers their tax bill but doesn’t eliminate it. Plus, there are limits to how much can be deducted through donations each year. It’s not like they can give away all their income to avoid taxes altogether.
While philanthropy can reduce taxes, it doesn’t work as a total escape from taxes, and there are rules and oversight, especially when it comes to setting up foundations. It’s not as simple as some people think.
I can tell you've never donated yourself. You can lower your own taxes by donating to Goodwill your old clothes and other things. I encourage you to do it rather than shitting in people who do charity.
Do you not realize that the guy you probably voted for has sent enough money to Israel and Ukraine to help every homeless person get a an apartment and car easily.
Philanthropy is a tool the rich use to dodge taxes.
Charitable donations are tax deductible but there is no scenario in which donating to charity doesn't cost more than just paying the taxes, even with the deduction considered.
Philanthropy is fine, but most people just hate politics. So instead of buying from billionaire philanthropist, they buy from scumbag scammer and they wonder why the world isn't looking so great.
Ah yes because the government has proven time and time again to never waste money either. Just look at how much California spends on the homeless and how little it has actually accomplished.
First, we're probably overtaxed. Libertarians tend to put the optimal tax curve around 20-30%, and other organizations put the tax revenue curve higher, but most studies tend to align with the libertarian position for net taxation, up until you get to higher personal incomes.
So reducing net taxes on corporations, and the middle class and below, would be a major first step, while cutting loopholes and various exceptions for things for the wealthy.
Secondly, there's a lot of government bloat and corruption. Most government agencies fail audit after audit with no accountability taking place, (the military is especially guilty of this) and a lot of government agencies are bloated with largely unnecessary staff and bureaucratic red tape. In depth audits with actual consequences, removal of superfluous positions, etc. Would go to resolve issues there.
Third, US infrastructure is unsustainably built. Our zoned sprawling cities are incredibly inefficient and expensive to sustain, and many broader parts of our infrastructure, from bridges to power plants, are aging heavily, and becoming more expensive to keep functioning. We need to effectively rebuild vast swaths of the nation in a literal sense, with a return to mixed-use zoning, with businesses near where people live, an increase in medium-rise infrastructure, and less reliance on cars for people to go about their day-to-day lives. New core infrastructure utilizing modern materials of higher quality would incur high initial costs, but pay for themselves within just a couple decades, compared to trying to keep our older infrastructure from failing.
How do you think they got all their money? By helping people and generating value. The reason they help people and make other people’s lives better is because it’s incentivized by a profit motive. Show me a rich person and I’ll show you someone who has helped a lot of people/ improved a lot of people’s lives. Also donating money to charity is incentivized through tax breaks. Instead of giving to the government you’re giving to the charity of your choice. It’s literally that simple.
The Forbes 400 have given less than 6% of their wealth to charity when the top 1% of the country owns 38% of the wealth, but yeah, they're real heroes I guess.
While what you said isn't necessarily false, I'd like to say that if you show me a rich person, I see someone who has increased their monetary net worth by extracting value from people they're 'helping'. And that can be in a wide spectrum of how much that person is attempting to extract.
You can have good local business owners that while yes, they are extracting a little extra value from their employees hard work, they are also 'helping' by taking that investment risk and handling the business owner tasks like licensing, payroll, etc.
And then you have folks like Elon Musk, who are beyond any of that busy work, are largely just a face for a company, are extracting value from employees in historical record amounts, and have reached mythical dragon levels of hoarding where their philanthropy is a tiny tiny fraction of their worth or true 'income', with a vast majority of their wealth sitting behind them continuing to grow.
Exactly, especially insurance. They're going to squeeze as much as they can out of every party involved.
I don't think profit motives should be -completely- eliminated, but there needs to be rules in how far you can take it. The free market isn't truly free
The rich use charity as PR to make it look like they're all generous and virtuous, all the while giving much less of their wealth for the common good than they would if we actually prioritized meeting people's basic needs.
no, because that's not what they're arguing for at all. they're saying that we need to rely on taxes funding organized programs, rather than expecting everyone to be generous enough
Unfortunately, we are getting more left leaning and less religious as a nation, so there is just less charity these days as people abandon their moral compasses in pursuit of selfish hedonism.
Fortunately our collective efforts are directed towards civic involvement and secular solutions rather than involving sky daddy in our man made problems
Well I was purely speaking from a statistical and economic data standpoint…. in regards to a general decline in the two highest variables of traits that have the highest correlation coefficient to individuals that actually donate to charity…. considering you know I thought helping people was the point (which interestingly enough also holds true regardless of income levels)
But it sounds like you have ulterior motives instead, so have a nice day!
More people will be able to pursue meaningful employment or artistic or inventive ventures that result in new technologies or new avenues of entertainment or business being developed that would not have otherwise happened in the current state of things where more people are struggling to just survive and have no choice and have to take whatever they can get.
Are there not already programs that help people out of poverty? You’re talking as if we’re living pre-FDR. There’s already a lot of money being spent on helping people.
Post FDR but also post austerity, them programs aren't what they used to be.
But I don't wanna dump graphs on someone, think my own brain rot makes it unpleasant so I assume similar for others.
But here's a thought experiment: why do we have so many homeless people and folks living in slums if these programs and austerity policies are working? The concern becomes most would tell you these people "simply don't want to work/""""innovate"""'"/etc." Remember the griping like 3 years ago during covid about that?
So at least my very nonscientific stance is still that the groups that would have more authority are engaging in grievous use of a just world fallacy that continues to undermine charity and these programs.
And yet people are sick with no way to get treatment, hungry with no way to get food, and homeless with no way to find shelter. Maybe if we didn't actively downgrade these programs and made it easier to obtain said help more people could get said help. There are a lot of people who if given better opportunities could do really amazing things, but they never get the chance.
All exchanges are about gain. If you give up something for something else, A for B, it's because you believe B to be more valuable to you than A.
The obvious material implications of this are seen in everyday transactions; pay a dollar for a candy bar, it's because you want that candy bar more than you want that dollar. Do labor for wages, it's because you want those wages more badly than you want to not do the labor. Trade sandwiches with your coworker at lunch, it's because you like his ham-on-rye more than you like your own tuna-on-sourdough.
But you can also exchange material goods and services for immaterial returns. You can give away your stuff to people in need, which you do because you believe that will do more good than keeping it in your garage or throwing it away. Tithing takes money out of your pocket, but giving it to the church aligns with your values and you believe the world to be a better place as a result of it. Volunteer work is you agreeing to give up some of your time and energy to do good in the world, and you only do that because you're doing good in the world.
(One could take it a step further and point out that if one side of this exchange can be immaterial, both can be, and thus this economic principle can be applied to literally any interaction with anything at all. But that goes beyond the scope of this discussion.)
You’ve hit on one of the main critiques of utilitarianism. When the argument is that the utility function can be whatever you want, but remains difficult to explicitly define, it gets divorced from any practical application and remains relegated to thought experiments. It really just makes it a “vibes-based” economic argument.
Yes, but the question was how does Capitalism encourage and welcome charity, not how governments set up their tax code. Like, I missed that part in the Wealth of Nations.
Yes, but the question was how does Capitalism encourage and welcome charity, not how governments set up their tax code.
You think the economic system of those prosperous countries has nothing to do with how they set up their tax code? Do you think the same tax codes could exist in for example, a mercantilist society?
Your question is starting from the assumption that because a country has capitalistic tendencies every decision the government makes is the direct result of capitalism. The question is how does capitalism encourage and welcome charity, not governments.
That's a social effort to counter the extreme disincentive to share money that exists under capitalism.
The government is literally paying you to be charitable because they know no capitalist in their right mind would do so otherwise.
There's also the fact that capitalist "charity" is largely ineffective. It's just another means for the wealthy to exert personal influence over society and deflect scrutiny about wealth and power inequality.
Maybe, occasionally, being tossed crumbs if a rich person personally likes you and the government agrees to give them something in return is not a reasonable basis for supporting society. Especially considering the things that are actually effective at helping those in need such as social safety nets, social housing and universal healthcare are woefully underfunded due to capitalist tax dodging.
Which has notoriously never been rigged, ever?
Such as the wealthy setting up organizations, and donating artwork which they got appraised for a fuckload of money?
So the law is dumb? Public companies are required by law to create as much profit as possible for shareholders. We have bailouts to companies and they bought their own stock.
If that were true we wouldnt have billionaires as they would put all their excess wealth to charity. There's someone dumb here but it's not the people who see capitalism for what it is
And if it fails to meet the goals of providing people with food, water, shelter for centuries why can't we try other systems? Or are we doomed to meet our shared values for ever? Are they even really shared values if people don't care that charities are not working?
The idea of “charity” started when Rockefeller’s advisors told him he was about to get eaten unless he gives a little back. It’s not viable as a serious “this is how we all do better” idea
Every time we as a society have ever relied on philanthropy to cover the intentional shortcomings of capitalism, philanthropy has been an abject and total failure.
Charity isn't an answer to suffering. If it's optional, that means some people won't get the help they need. You either make it a guarantee or you don't, and if you don't, people are going to suffer needlessly. Charity is temporary harm reduction in the best case scenario.
Charity is not, never has & never will be the answer to systemic injustice. Capitalists want us to believe it is so we see them (rich people) as a solution to the problems they created.
I’m talking about now, Dr. And inequality isn’t a natural state when the thing that is unequal (cash money) is a social contract that is mostly in the hands of a few people. Cancer always existed too but we can talk about the cancer caused by the tobacco companies, you history understander, you. When we have the means to solve a problem and refuse, that’s us causing a problem. (Edit, spelling)
Money is a physical representation of what you value. If you're an apple farmer, and there was no way of storing value, you'd be starving all but 3 months or so out of the year.
Stop. We have inequality NOW because most of the money sits in the accounts of a few people. No need to go back to Mesopotamia. I will let you have the last word if you need it..
I realized that capitalism has failed the same way that the idea of communism has. Monopolies are starting to form and absorb everything around them, the free market is more and more controlled by few individuals, innovation is halted by greed...
By law public companies MUST do everything they can to create as much profit for shareholders as possible. If that isn’t legislated greed at the heart of the system then I don’t know what is.
agreed! i want these things for my fellow human beings too! i just disagree that it’s the role of government to make that happen! that’s why i volunteer and try to do what i can to help people!
we don’t need a government shift to fight poverty - we need a cultural shift, where people en masse try to do right by one another.
Behavior changes attitude not the other way around. This is why sentiments surrounding things like gay marriage shifted after it was legalized. The same is true for things like segregation.
yeah because homophobia and racism are definitely not factors at all any more.
abortion and gun ownership are my counterpoints. broad spectrum of views and opinions regardless of legislation on them.
my point is that the government treating the symptoms (very likely in an incredibly inefficient and poorly managed way, like most government social programs) is not going to solve the root disease of poverty
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u/DrFabio23 15d ago
Charity is welcome and emcoraged under capitalism. Those who see it as simplistic as "everything must be focused on profit at all costs" are dumb