The welfare state is waning. Bring on the philanthropists

Interesting article, even though I don't agree with all of it by a long stretch. make of this what you will.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1807483,00.html

Private giving is still insignificant compared with what governments do. Next year Britain's international aid will be twice as much as that of the new Gates foundation. But in the 19th century few would have predicted that the state would supplant private charity. The movement from voluntary to compulsory welfare began with a shift in moral imagination. I see no reason why that shift should not be reversed.

In Britain it is still far off. Apart from a few names such as Sainsbury, Weston and Rausing, private giving is nowhere near the American league. This is despite the dramatic shift in tax generosity during the 80s, when marginal income tax fell from over 80% to 40%, leading to a stark widening in the gap between very rich and middling poor. What was significant was that Labour's Tony Blair and Gordon Brown accepted this shift and have promoted it in power.

The trend under Tories and Labour to discredit the "public-service ethos" has been marked. In the mouths of ministers, public = bad, private = good is axiomatic. Hence the slump in morale that envelops every arm of government, evidenced in the churning of "ongoing reform" to health, education and law and order. Not a government department seems "fit for purpose" - not schools, the NHS, the Home Office, agriculture, social security, even defence. As a result the British public sector has lost the moral supremacy it enjoyed under socialism in the 20th century. This is not because people have retreated from welfarism or social action but because government has come to seem an introverted monopolist, unworthy of the trust once placed in it. Power has drifted away from contact with people, and public service has been contracted out to the private sector.

America's large private fortunes grew on the back of what in Britain were mostly public industries, such as utilities, coal, steel and later cars and computers. It was the second and third generations that turned to philanthropy. Britain has yet to see the philanthropic urge reach American proportions. Its capitalists have yet to be made vulnerable to shame. But I have no doubt that the inability of the NHS to sustain local hospitals and doctors will mean a revival of private health charity, as is happening in America through the churches.

He thinks that churches are taking up the slack in America. Well, they aren't and when the government stops giving the churches welfare, the poor will slide into a total and abject poverty like we haven't seen for several generations. He says himself that the money from the Gates foundation won't begin to do anything about poverty. In fact, they really aren't even trying to do anything about poverty. As far as the wealthy giving away money? With only a few rare exceptions, does anyone really think they'll give away their fortunes to charity?

If the British fall for this, they're stupid. All they have to do is look across the ocean at us to see what a lie it is.

with regulations and income supplements and good public education.. throughout the 20th century. It isn't one or the other. That is a false choice.

but it's one that many people get suckered into. Charity is good. Only an idiot would deny that, but there is nothing at all wrong with government working to acheve the same aims. And just because we belive that government should help the poor does not mean that we should discourage charities from working themselves for the same objectives in a fit of sectarian pique. Government and Charity should really go hand in hand.

18th Century for Western democracies.. wealthy families began to look at ways they could participate. Perhaps until then charity began with giving money to the church. But as corporations and organizations grew, so too did rich people begin to look at ways they could more efficiently give money to the causes they felt akin to. I think a family in Cleveland was one of the first to build a foundation.

But as these philanthropic enterprises were devoted to the pet causes of the personalities that built them..so too they do not cover the needs of the population as a whole.

So charities only do some things well. Sexy ideas get well funded. In the USA especially, politically motivated ideas get well funded and the test to whether this actually is an effective means of helping anyone but themselves is not looking good at this point in some instances.

Long hard slogs not so much. Unless the people doing the donating look specifically for the long hard slogs.. and try and find a way to fix fundamental issues (Bill and Melinda Gates).

The government stepped into the long hard slogs. It stepped into funding people as a means of keeping the economy going (which helps rich people.. depression was not good for stock portfolios after all). So to say that government funding doesn't help the establishment is BULLSHIT.

And yes. Both are needed. Because business only contributes so much. Churches can add hock help out.. and do, do alot of the long term soul care. But public policy is exactly what made the West win the cold war. Liberal mixed market economies solved the issue of depressions and allowed for huge long term growth in the west for the last 150 years. And that long term growth is what separates a place like America from a place like Borneo.

I mean goodness, even the likes of Oxfam and Christian Aid can't do everything. Which is why you tend to have lots of charities raising money for lots of different things and why also it is best to also have the government providing healthcare and welfare for the poor and needy as that remains the best way to solve these problems. As the article does point out, "such private giving is still insignificant compared with what governments do." If Government welfare is the most effective way of helping people that should be encouraged, but let's not discourage Charity. Charity is a force for good and we need all the good we can get in this world.

And for all the wining and moaning made by the right about welfare I don't think even they would want to have our countries flooded with all the old social problems we had before the advent of the welfare state. And I for one do not like the fact that our NHS seems to be moving more towards the American model. What gets me though is that the left was once all about helping the poor and the needy, that seems to have fallen to the wayside these days in favour of bourgeois politically correct causes that do not really do anything to help the worst off in society. No wonder that the left is in such a mess at present.

And I'm glad you mentioned Bill Gates oddly enough as much of the article is devoted to Warren Buffett's $31 billion donation to Bill Gates's foundation. I might have put this stuff in the OP but for space and copyright restrictions. From the article

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1807483,00.html

When the world's second-richest man gives most of his money to the world's richest man we do well to count our spoons. Warren Buffett has given $31bn to Bill Gates to add to his $29bn foundation. Gates replied with a quote from Adam Smith on the virtue of philanthropy. He omitted another quote from the great man, that merchants "seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public". What is going on?
Buffett claims to believe in meritocracy and is thus forcing his children to rub along on a billion each. Since leaving cash in a bank sticks in the entrepreneurial craw, the rest must go somewhere. In desperation Buffett sought help from the Gateses.

On Monday at the New York Sheraton Buffett joined Bill and Melinda Gates to reveal what they might do with their conjoined fortune. Merely supplementing the welfare state with cash for schools and hospitals seemed beneath the dignity of these global tycoons. As CNN's Ted Turner once gave $1bn to the United Nations, so the Gates team are to alleviate world poverty and disease, and improve access to technology. "Millions of people round the world are facing health problems," revealed Buffett, while Mrs Gates added that malaria medicines "are hard to take if people have insufficient food to swallow".

One of the reasons why he championed government-funded social programs was because he tried to operate a "faith-based" charity during the Depression, and he saw how big a gap there was. He knew that, no matter how well-intentioned these efforts are, there is a need for government involvement because some problems are too big for individual philanthropists and even NGOs to address (especially when it comes to policies which can keep things from reaching that point). And also, even the most transparent and open-minded private group is going to have "blind spots" about who they will and won't serve. (In my town, the church-based food bank will not give food to single people like me, even though I have given them donations.)