Submitted by TuvixWasMurderedR1P t3_yd1jb3 in philosophy
Smallpaul t1_itpxb7e wrote
Reply to comment by glass_superman in Peter Singer Is the Philosopher of the Status Quo by TuvixWasMurderedR1P
I don’t think anyone knows which is more likely to work at a global system level. But it is demonstrably easier for a single individual to dramatically change the life of another individual through charity (I have done it several times). For me to achieve the same through politics is incredibly diffuse and difficult to prove, especially if I eschew electoral politics as many Jacobin writers would probably suggest.
Obviously I’m happy that some people work on behalf of the poor through politics, and I vote for them. But I could spend my whole life without accruing any evidence whatsoever that I had actually improved anyone’s life. It’s almost a faith based activity, whereas the fruits of my charitable work are obvious,
The other issue is that in politics, the harder you work, the harder your opponents are motivated to work. In charity there are seldom opponents. Hardly ever is there a person who makes it their life goal to re-impoverish people.
glass_superman t1_itq7k2e wrote
> Hardly ever is there a person who makes it their life goal to re-impoverish people.
It's basically the mission statement of many corporations. The IMF has austerity plans to "help" poor nations.
Nestle buying up the sources of water in order to resell water to poor people is an attempt to reimpoverish people, for profit.
No one explicitly has the aim to impoverish people but we set up systems to allow us to do it while obfuscating the guilty. And when we fail to obfuscate the guilt, we give charity! Charity was invented to relieve us of our guilt.
Smallpaul t1_itqa3un wrote
> No one explicitly has the aim to impoverish people ....
Yeah that’s what I said before you contradicted me and then contradicted yourself.
> ... but we set up systems to allow us to do it while obfuscating the guilty.
Sometimes the guilty are pre-obfuscated. When America set up its highway system rather than a decent train system, nobody knew they were contributing the flooding of Tuvalu. The world is hella complex and only a tiny minority of problems are caused by identifiable “bad guys” and a much smaller minority of those “bad guys” are capitalist CEOs, as opposed to warlords, authoritarians and others who get power outside of democracy or capital markets.
> And when we fail to obfuscate the guilt, we give charity! Charity was invented to relieve us of our guilt.
No. Charity was invented to help people.
But yes it does also assuage guilt. Another way to assuage guilt is to say that charity does nothing. Then you can do nothing and feel justified.
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