Would it seem plausible that government charity works against social cohesion as the giver of money, the government official, is not he who gains the pleasure of his charitable donation?

I'm out on a limb here but it made sense to me that where real charity occurs, both parties benefit, as the transaction wouldn't have been made if that wasn't the case. Yet in the case of government charity, and I'm talking about welfare, disability allowance, employment benefits and so on, the money is taken by force, denying society a mutally beneficial charity transaction.

ps. Does anyone know why adding vinegar to water helps keep poached eggs in one piece?

You aren't on that much of a limb. I think it's pretty clear that when something is taken by force the victim is denied using it other mutually beneficial ways, including and not limited to voluntary charity.

Well, obviously "real charity where both party benefits" is much better than what I presume is "fake charity where only one party benefits". I don't suspect I will have to explain why as long as I agree, only if I would happen to disagree would that be demanded.

I suggest an immediate move to politics.

P.S I also like hit'n'runs where both parties benefit much better than hit'n'runs where only one party benefits.

The poached egg part is smp.

Yeah, that's why I didn't quote that one. See. SMP makes you clever.

I don't know if there is a formal definition of "real charity" somewhere, but I would imagine that taking money by threat of force from someone and giving some of it to someone else is not included.

Americans make you clever.

You are out on a limb; this post belongs in Politics, and stop the weaseling.

This thread will be moved to the Politics Forum immediately.


-Zeno

It's pretty obvious that the idea behind 'government charity' is that the government uses force to provide charity which it does not think would be provided in the absence of coercion. The idea is pretty obviously that the utility of forcing someone to give to 'government charity' is greater than the utility of not providing the 'government charity' at all. So the fact that the 'government charity' is not mutually beneficial is outweighed by the fact that the poor who gain from welfare gain much more utility than the taxpayers loss of utility.

This really should be obvious. The only reason you didn't realize how obvious it was when you were typing it out, was because you didn't factor in the absence of coercion, the money given to charity will not remain the same as the money obtained through 'government charity.'

And once you factor in the fact that probably half of the money will be used up in government overhead, half of that due to corruption, and half of that to people who don't actually deserve it, does anyone benefit? Oh, right. The corrupt politicians.

One idea for reform is to keep current tax rates, but allow taxpayers to choose where that money goes. This allows both for more taxpayer control over government spending (save the issue of deficit spending, which would perhaps become less politically tenable), as well as returning the moral benefits to the taxpayer.

Don't forget the illegals!!!!1!1!1!! Keep reading dem tabloids.

I'd say that despite the corruption and government overhead, the millions of people out of work through no fault of their own right now are probably benefiting quite well out of the system. I benefited quite well from the NHS when I broke my face by coming off my bike. The millions of other people cared for by the NHS benefit quite a lot I'd imagine. More hyperbole plz. Claiming the lots of people don't benefit from welfare is hilarious. If you want to argue there's a better way to do it, go right ahead, but your above claims are just crap you've had forced down your throat by fox news and regurgitated onto your keyboard.

How is this not the same as not taxing them? I already choose where my money goes. Are you just being a clever no-tax-advocate?

There would still be a mandated minimum, thus the part about keeping current tax rates. You might even have to raise them somewhat to compensate for the fact that people already give money to charity, and perhaps some minimum would still need to go to govt for things which are not currently provided by third party charities, although arguably people would funnel a bunch of money into these things anyway.

I must have phrased my question poorly as my angle was more to do with the impact of a faceless donator of charity rather than a human being. I was thinking that recieving aid from a human being would create more 'togetherness' in a society when compared to recieving money from a beauracrat, who might not even give a crap about you anyway.

It probably works for small societies (families, clans, the kibbutz, communes) and some goal specific big ones (for example unions, cooperatives, some organized crime types).

If history is to believed, for most mixed and larger societies you'd just end up with an acceptance of poverty in the "wealthy" (aka non-poor) sections of society.

That in itself isn't necessarily a valid justification for taxation, but it's certainly a valid argument for taxation. I think most people in the politics forum have forgotten the difference a long time ago - so discussing it here would be mostly uninteresting I think.

A counter point is that those same assumed pre-conditions for valid taxation are also the conditions under which ineffective taxation manifests. Large scale societies with complex taxation/regulation/subsidy systems are the ones where you find lack of clarity in exactly what the system is doing, systemic intentional abuse of the system, and accordingly large scale unintended consequences. So the emergence of large and mixed societies doesn't necessarily drive you towards the conclusion that taxation is net positive, rather it just frames the cost/benefit analysis in different terms.

Government charity is an oxymoron.

It is real easy to be "charitable" with other people's money.

But only a government gets credited with generosity when it does this.

Could you clarify what you mean by this?

And it's pretty obvious this is a terrible argument full of theoretical and factual errors.

Why don't you itemize them for discussion?

1. Interpersonal comparison of utility is impossible.

2. Even barring the objection above, no utilitarian research is conducted by Congress prior to enactment of "charitable" policies.

2. It's not true that a private charity-only approach results in less money being given overall.

Agree with that one.

Is it necessary to do such calculations to support policies or is it enough to argue "money means less to the rich than the poor, so we're moving it from the rich to the poor", which I think is about as far as most people go.

What is this assertion based on?

This is not evident to me at all. In fact the reverse is true for me. If I wanted more money I'd work more and spend less and have it. If you compared the "current me" to the "wants more money me" you'd see that the one who wants money more is the one who has more money. And if you stole from the richer me and gave to current me you'd have reduced utility.

But you might not care if the money also paid your above average and "above all of your other options" wages.