Clearly, the advantage falls to the person or persons who can actually make the laws, let alone interpret and enforce them. If a charity becomes corrupt or miserly, then nothing is to prevent a competing charity from rising up and meeting the challenge. But governments, as traditionally established, do not allow competition. That’s why I kept asking the question until someone answered it. (Thank you, by the way! :)) If you cannot enforce the charitableness of your government, then there is no reason that it would do any better with disease and starvation than private charity. There is no reason that governers will not pocket substantial sums of the taxes they collect, and divert substantial sums to things in which they have interests.
Broadly speaking correct, which is why accountability is so important.
Not totally sure you have this bit right though.
There is still a reason: The monies aren’t dependent on people feeling nice, and the government can still be held accountable.
They can always do that, even with the funds that libertarians support going to the government–like funds for armies. The government is no more trustworthy with money libertarians would put in their hands, yet most libertarians don’t say, “Oh, so let’s have a private army.”
If, at the root of everything, you simply distrust the government to do anything, then it’s not much of an argument to say that you distrust the government to do a specific thing. If you make an exception for armies, why not an exception for soup kitchens?
I haven’t really tested it personally, but my ancestors did. Their competing government was moved from its fertile Appalachian farms to an Oklahoma wasteland.
The monies are certainly dependent on people being charitable. If those who hold the governers to account aren’t themselves charitable in the first place, then what will move them to force their governers to be charitable? And if they are, then why wouldn’t they be?
It’s not that I make an exception for armies; it’s just that armies can shoot you dead.
It takes a less sustained charity to pass a law than to give a chunk of money every day, don’t you think? Those who decry the laws might even use that as evidence that those who pass the laws aren’t really charitable, they’re just taking the easy way out. But frankly, I don’t care if people feel charitable so long as those on the receiving end don’t die.
Hmm. This line made me laugh, and then I realized that I don’t get your point. It seems that armies shooting you dead is much more responsibility than someone being able to snitch your money, so why let the government be in charge of the former but not the latter?
I wonder if you realize how much private charity there really is? I’ll bet a lot of people who support large government social programs really believe that the poor would starve if it weren’t for private charity.
In fact, private charity today is over 2% of GDP. That’s about half of what the U.S. spends on the military, and about five times what the government spends on welfare programs.
And if there were no public charity and consequently lower taxes and greater need for private charity, it would be even higher.
I meant, “I’ll bet a lot of people who support large government social programs really believe that the poor would starve if it weren’t for government charity.”
And yet, die they do. Google phrases like “dying in the streets”, “child protective services failure”, and “elderly starving”. Limousines, staffs of attorneys, massive buildings made of granite — these things are quite expensive, and these are things that governers pay for first. They then pay for military armies to protect themselves from foreign governments, and domestic armies (FBI, OHS, etc.) to protect themselves from citizens. Then they pay for election campaigns. Then they pay for bridges and dams and public works to reward their contributors. Then they pay for corporate welfare so that bad managers don’t have consequences for their bad decisions. Then they pay gigantic agriculture subsidies, forgive massive foreign debts, and fund foreign governments so they can do these same things. They pay to put buckets of bolts in orbit that have blown up twice. They pay people union wages to lean on shovels. And they pay to collect the money they take, they pay to account for it, and they pay to disburse it. Even a charitable governer has very little left over to hand out, and God help us on behalf of the governers who couldn’t care less.
You don’t have to care about people to kill them, but you have to care to feed them. Back to the original question: how do you know that your governers will be charitable? Who is more dependable for the sake of charity: the man who is armed to the teeth and fears no one, or the man who cares about his friend’s plight?