The virtues of inegalitarian American philanthropy
11th September 2007
Read it. In case you were wondering. I know I was.
Of course, the article that Tyler references has a lot of the standard prog tropes: that charitable giving is just a scheme to screw the government out of tax revenue that would otherwise go to Worthy Causes (those dogs in the manger!), that government is more “effective and efficient” in helping society than charitable giving because let’s face it private persons have really screwed up priorities compared to civil servants who are more likely to listen to enlightened progressives like us, that it’s a pity that the wealthy control so large a share of the National Income which is of course not something that they produced after all that’s why it’s called the National Income so why should they have any say over how it is spent at all that just makes no sense, etc., etc.
In essence, the public is letting private individuals decide how to allocate money on their behalf.
See, it’s not really their money anyway, it’s the public’s money, and it just wound up in their hands because our society is oppressive and degenerate but just hasn’t realized it yet the way we enlightened leftists have. So it’s just a question of public policy whether we let they spend it or have it spent by the aforementioned enlightened civil servants I mean the question really answers itself ya know?