A link in the BBC's newsfeed catches my eye: Free book scheme handed 50% cut, with the teaser "A charity that gives free books to children is told of a 50% cut in funding, two months after fears over its future sparked a political 'U-turn' row". (Note that the actual headline, when you get there, is somewhat less informative.)
It's hard to fault it as an example of systematic double thinking: a charity (nice people, good) has its funding cut (less to spend, bad). So simple! And yet so wrong.
Charities collect voluntary donations and then disburse them. To the extent that this 'charity' is funded by government, to that extent it is acting not as a charity, but as a spending agency of the government. It's now "giving" away not money that has been freely given, but money that has been extracted by force, or the threat of force, and that's not good.
Even worse than the moral point though, is the way government funding, even when it's done as "matching", exerts a chronically corrupting influence on the charities that receive it. Their managements start to work closely with the Home Office, they produce position papers to illustrate how their intentions align with government objectives, people go on secondment in both directions; instead of writing their budget to match their expected income, they start to produce "requirements" budgets that, naturally, show enormous deficits... Eventually, the lure of money results in the charity becoming an extension of whatever department funds them: instead of government funds supplementing private charity, private funds end up supplementing government spending.
Government already allows tax breaks for private charitable contributions. If it wants to encourage charities even more, it could simply allow tax breaks at more than 100% of the tax payable. The curernt system of co-opting favoured charities for subsidy and control is deceitful and corrupt, and should be discontinued.
Adam Smith said that charities tend to be run more for the benefit of those who run them than for the benefit of the supposed beneficiaries.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the persuasive uniformed young people who interrupt our shopping to urge us to support the needy with standing orders, are paid for their services.
If only they'd offer to sell their bodies, they'd both give us something for our money, and make their own contribution to the cause.
I agree with Adam Smith! Furthermore, I think that a large fraction of the many thousands of modern charities are in fact nothing of the sort, but merely devices for siphoning off government funds.
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