I read a comment recently that basically said we can't force people to be charitable to the "less-fortunate." In other words, charity must come from the kindness in their hearts. This comment was made in the context of workers being stripped of benefits, but it really applies to the idea of social welfare as a whole. The thinking goes something like this, "I worked hard and earned all my wealth, so if I want to share it, I can, but if I don't, no one will force me. Forcing me is dictatorship!"
The rich have a peculiar atmosphere of their own. However cultured, unobtrusive, ancient and polished, the rich have an impenetrable and assured aloofness, that inviolable certainty and hardness that is difficult to break down. They are not the possessors of wealth, but are possessed by wealth, which is worse than death. Their conceit is philanthropy; they think they are trustees of their wealth; they have charities, create endowments; they are the makers, the builders, the givers. They build churches, temples, but their god is the god of their gold. With so much poverty and degradation, one must have a very thick skin to be rich. --J.Krishnamurti
This thinking reminded me of the quote above. If you treat me ruthlessly as "your" worker for years on end, but then you give a dollar a day to a starving child in Africa, have you then acquired--yes, I mean acquired--the label of charitable? If charity were truly in your heart, would you have brought about a system in which your worker was exploited to begin with? Wouldn't you have made a society in which charity didn't get selectively applied to those of your choosing? You, the god, have "chosen ones" to bestow your charity on. But, you are always at a safe distance, forever being careful not to truly jeopardize your own lot in life. This is not charity, it is self-aggrandizement. Having acquired so much in monetary power, you turn to other acquisitive challenges: fame, respectability, admiration (social power).
The other problem has to do with depth of perception. You realize that workers work for you because they need money. It's not out of responsibility to help you, which is why you feel justified in not helping them. The reality is that these workers take low wages because that is the best that they can get considering their circumstances. They take jobs with few vacation days, long hours, and barely enough pay because that is their best option. Isn't that a form of social welfare for you? You get access to an abundant supply of cheap labor. The economic system supports this social welfare program for you. So, the problem isn't with social welfare, it's just the fact that you want to be the only recipient of it. Why should you have this benefit? Why do you get to pay workers less than what is needed to live comfortably? Because they have no real choice?
It is true that someone can quit and work at another low wage job, but how is that helpful? If money is needed to "earn a living," then how free are we really? So, even though you don't want to be forced to share your resources/wealth, you don't mind forcing others to be deprived of it.
If you were truly charitable, there would be no reason to force people to share their wealth because deprivation would have been solved already. You would not be complicit in a system that treats people as commodities. You didn't pay your mom $4 for a gallon of breast milk when you were an infant nor did you force her to provide it. She did so, naturally. In the same vein, why don't you make sure that I have access to what nourishes me so that I become a healthy, happy, and balanced contributor to society? Is it because you just don't really care?
The rich have a peculiar atmosphere of their own. However cultured, unobtrusive, ancient and polished, the rich have an impenetrable and assured aloofness, that inviolable certainty and hardness that is difficult to break down. They are not the possessors of wealth, but are possessed by wealth, which is worse than death. Their conceit is philanthropy; they think they are trustees of their wealth; they have charities, create endowments; they are the makers, the builders, the givers. They build churches, temples, but their god is the god of their gold. With so much poverty and degradation, one must have a very thick skin to be rich. --J.Krishnamurti
This thinking reminded me of the quote above. If you treat me ruthlessly as "your" worker for years on end, but then you give a dollar a day to a starving child in Africa, have you then acquired--yes, I mean acquired--the label of charitable? If charity were truly in your heart, would you have brought about a system in which your worker was exploited to begin with? Wouldn't you have made a society in which charity didn't get selectively applied to those of your choosing? You, the god, have "chosen ones" to bestow your charity on. But, you are always at a safe distance, forever being careful not to truly jeopardize your own lot in life. This is not charity, it is self-aggrandizement. Having acquired so much in monetary power, you turn to other acquisitive challenges: fame, respectability, admiration (social power).
The other problem has to do with depth of perception. You realize that workers work for you because they need money. It's not out of responsibility to help you, which is why you feel justified in not helping them. The reality is that these workers take low wages because that is the best that they can get considering their circumstances. They take jobs with few vacation days, long hours, and barely enough pay because that is their best option. Isn't that a form of social welfare for you? You get access to an abundant supply of cheap labor. The economic system supports this social welfare program for you. So, the problem isn't with social welfare, it's just the fact that you want to be the only recipient of it. Why should you have this benefit? Why do you get to pay workers less than what is needed to live comfortably? Because they have no real choice?
It is true that someone can quit and work at another low wage job, but how is that helpful? If money is needed to "earn a living," then how free are we really? So, even though you don't want to be forced to share your resources/wealth, you don't mind forcing others to be deprived of it.
If you were truly charitable, there would be no reason to force people to share their wealth because deprivation would have been solved already. You would not be complicit in a system that treats people as commodities. You didn't pay your mom $4 for a gallon of breast milk when you were an infant nor did you force her to provide it. She did so, naturally. In the same vein, why don't you make sure that I have access to what nourishes me so that I become a healthy, happy, and balanced contributor to society? Is it because you just don't really care?
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