faux charity

For the same reason that you don’t get paid in chickens and goats. The money, resources, and skills that we have available don’t always match what’s needed, so we translate the investment of time and resources we have into a larger amount of cash that can be translated again into things that the people who need them actually need. A woman in Iowa may not be able to travel to the Gulf coast to cook for hurricane victims, but she can donate some ingredients and the time to bake a bunch of cakes. Other people may not be willing or able to send much cash to charity, but they’re willing to pay a premium for this woman’s delicious cakes. In the end, the charity winds up with more money than they would have if both people sent in what they were willing or able to give in cash, because the cake-baker’s work is now added into the equation.

Just like in any other business venture, this is sometimes done very inefficiently out of ignorance, and sometimes is broken by greed and corruption.

But often it works extremely well and can do a lot of good that wouldn’t otherwise happen.

Instead of thinking ‘capitalism disguised as charity’, think ‘capitalism used to benefity charity’. Except where it’s done boneheadedly, and then it’s just boneheadededness, not that the entire idea is flawed.

A woman in Iowa may not be able to travel to the Gulf coast to cook for hurricane victims, but she can donate some ingredients and the time to bake a bunch of cakes. Other people may not be willing or able to send much cash to charity, but they’re willing to pay a premium for this woman’s delicious cakes.

This is a good point – and highlights that maybe my problem is not really with some woman who decides to bake cakes for charity – but rather the fucktards who can’t send $20 to the red cross, but can buy some baklava.

Then again, maybe the people who buy stuff from charity events ALSO gave $20 to the Red Cross. Or maybe they hadn’t gotten around to it, or hadn’t even thought about it (hard not to know about disaster relief, but lots of other organizations aren’t all over the news for weeks on end) but this brought whatever the cause is to their attention, so they bought a muffin.

There’s always some good to come of these things, but I come away with the sense that it’s often more about the bake-sale organizer/t-shirt seller/bike rider’s sense of self-satisfaction. “Hey, I’m riding to cure cancer. Will you sponser me? The cost of the ride is $300.” The ride organizers then take about $275.00 for SAG stops, rider t-shirts, follow cars, event insurance and ambulance rental. So $25/rider goes to charity, but everyone gets a cute t-shirt.

I can tell you what really annoys me: People who complain when individuals do whatever they can to assist in supporting relief efforts in response to an overwhelming tragedy. And what’s “faux” about raising real money for real relief efforts. I go to work and get paid and decide to give some of that money to the Red Cross. Is that also “capitalism” posing as a charity? I’ll stop there before saying what I really think about your pathetic annoyance.

I’ll stop there before saying what I really think about your pathetic annoyance.

Quitter!