I don't think it is a business. It sounds like they collect some money to pay for parts and such, but it's mainly community members helping each other in a somewhat organized fashion. I don't think a mutual aid group can be a business.
Edit: Ok I see they refer to a "business model" at one point, but I don't think it could be thought of as a business in the commonly understood sense, as it's not for profit and mostly staffed by volunteers.
> “At this point in my life,” he said, “the highest compliment someone can say about me is that I’m a ‘good man.’ That’s all that matters to me.”
...and:
> Before he started work on their car, Henson sat the Ellises down in their kitchen and made it clear what he was all about. He was a communist, he said, and his repair work was in service of that.
The shop is probably a "business" on paper, because it has to be in America: capitalism has fucked things up so bad that it's impossible to create legal organizations that help people without the assumption of a profit motive.
I’m doing this with a cooperative and I can tell you there aren’t any templates or legal docs or examples. Compared to the profit adjacent (c-corp, non-profit) which have effectively the same structure of ownership just different tax structures, there’s basically nothing off the shelf for mutual aid organizations
Depends on the co-op (if it is something like Mondragón, it wants to "seek profit" so that it can survive; credit unions "seek profit" to pay their expenses, etc) - they will all have a goal but that goal may not be cash money in the pocket; a co-op could have the goal of making a grocery store available to the community; the co-op "profits" on the difference between buying and selling, but the "profits" go to pay for labor, land, etc, and anything in excess of that (+ rainy day fund) gets rebated back.
And some co-ops are just a standard shareholder business where the shareholders are the members (credit unions are usually setup this way) so if they DO extract profit somehow or by accident, they just return it to the members. This has happened with credit unions when they unexpectedly get a windfall for some reason.
Minor pedantic point: there is sometimes a distinction made between profit and surplus, where the former is a surplus that is allocated wholly at the whims of the employer/capitalist. In this sense of the word, cooperatives are not necessarily profit-seeking, as the decision of what to do with the surplus is democratically (rather than dictatorially) controlled.
Even more pedantic, but surplus allocation is typically determined by the board of the co-op. While it's probably generally true that this functions a bit like a representative democracy, I have definitely been a member of (and worked for) cooperatives where the board is not exactly aligned with the membership about how to allocate surplus funds. Typically this comes when the co-op's board wants to make a capital investment for long-term growth when the membership may want their discount/dividends/whatever-the-organizations-payout-structure-is more than they care about expanding the scope or mission.
I'm surprised to hear this. Some years back, I looked into starting some kind of co-op, maybe a school co-op, and I remember printing off detailed instructions from the internet.
You don't need to register as a non-profit, but doing so may afford additional tax benefits to your donors.
Charitable organizations exist in The United States. The unsupported claim that it is impossible and that 'capitalism' is preventing charity, is probably what made this thread so inflammatory.
The statement laments the state's regulations (which don't prevent charity in any case) while blaming markets. From my side this reads as a non-sequitur.
History tells a different story in regards to mutual aid societies. It wasn't markets which prohibited mutual aid, but the state itself.
>Mutual aid, also known as fraternalism, refers to social organizations that gathered dues and paid benefits to members facing hardship.
>For instance, in New York City in 1909 40 percent of families earning less than $1,000 a year, little more than the "living wage," had members who were in mutual-aid societies.
>The first major blow against fraternalism occurred when the American Medical Association gained control of the licensing of medical schools. In 1912, a number of state medical boards formed the Federation of State Medical Boards, which accepted the AMA's ratings of medical schools as authoritative. The AMA quickly rated many schools as "unacceptable." Consequentially, the number of medical schools in America dropped from 166 in 1904 to 81 in 1918, a 51 percent drop.18 The increased price of medical services made it impractical for many lodges to retain the services of a doctor. Medical boards also threatened many doctors with being stripped of their licenses if they practiced lodge medicine.
>The next most damaging piece of legislation was the Mobile Law. The Mobile Law required that mutual aid societies show a gradual improvement in reserves. Until this time, societies had tended to keep low reserves in order to pay the maximum benefits possible to members. High reserve requirements made it difficult for societies to undercut traditional insurance companies. The Mobile Law also required a doctor's examination for all lodge members and forbade all "speculative" enterprises such as the extension of credit to members. By 1919, the Mobile Law had been enacted in 40 states.
> Can’t you just be a business that doesn’t make money?
The IRS doesn't like this, as they suspect you're doing tax fuckery and trying to write off hobby expenses.
Non-profits have various rules and regulations that can be relatively prohibitively expensive to deal with especially if you have never done it before.
Having a legal organization helps in many ways, so you're often best to set something up, or partner with someone who does have one. Many of these will be related to a church, fraternal organization, or even an actual business.
Social profit is a motive and money is simply a store of value. You can run a business for whatever goal you want.
Nothing legally stops you from opening a business that won't make net income, if you are willing to backfill the shortfall.
Capitalism hasn't put up any type of barriers against doing so, and there are still plenty of options. The barriers are primarily individually pessimism with a light sprinkling of government regulation.
The quote about being a good man is very cool. I wish more people were like that. I part ways with him pretty quickly on the communist activism, and don't think that capitalism is incompatible with being a good person.
First, did you bother reading the article? He is the opposite of an activist these days. He goes out of his way not to preach to anybody to the point where there are longtime conservative volunteers there that have no idea about his personal politics. He is just living his life according to his personal ideals.
Secondly, what is your issue with communist activism? If someone genuinely thinks that's the best way forward and wants to try and spread the word, power to them.
I said I differ with him; I don't think communism solves any problems but creates a lot of misery, this is proven historically. If he wants to promote it that's his right though, at least it is in this country.
Yes I read the whole article, I thought it was interesting.
While certainly not specific to Communism, the desire to find the best way forward has often been used throughout history to justify genocide and lots of other horrible actions. Merely having a utopian vision doesn't make a person good or preclude them from using evil means to achieve their vision.
> the desire to find the best way forward has often been used throughout history to justify genocide and lots of other horrible actions
Does that mean we should never again root for radical change? Because Stalin effectively murdered millions of people? If that's what you're implying, then I would have to disagree completely.
The activism of socialists and communists that you're labelling as "utopian" involves working on community problems, fighting for local progressive legislation, practicing mutual aid, showing up in solidarity with unions, and so on. And that's how it's been for a very long time. Where is the utopianism in that? And how on earth do you look to that and see a specter of genocide?
Right... like Elon Musk proposing using slavery to colonize Mars, or Jeff Bezos using Amazon's platform to promote Amazon products over his own customers' products being sold on his platform, or Mark Zuckerberg building platforms full of dark patterns to addict people to his platforms at the expense of their mental health? But unlike the Henson->Genocide connection you've insinuating, those are all well-documented and actually exist.
American capitalism has plenty of genocide on its hands, from the Trail of Tears to Wounded Knee to all of the stuff that Kissinger did in multiple countries.
You realize that there are plenty of communists who don't believe in violence or authoritarianism, right?
No, even charities and non-profits need to make money—they need to make a profit, or break even exactly— otherwise they will cease to exist. Even if the revenue is all donations, that's the business model. This also applies to other corporations like cities[1].
I'm confused why your comment starts with "no" as if you're disagreeing with me, and then you go on to give an example of my point that capitalism has fucked things up so badly that it's impossible to create legal organizations that help people without the assumption of a profit motive.
Given humans were organizing before the existence of money, I think it's pretty clear that money isn't a necessary component of organization. So no, it's not basic logic.
Not money, per se, but income. Without income, you can't produce anything. Income could be volunteer labour, or donations of physical goods, or proceeds from the sale of goods or services, but without a solid (business) plan that lays out how you're going to maintain a consistent level of income to support your activities, you probably won't be able to survive as an organization.
The basic logic is that if you don't eat, you will eventually starve to death. You might get by for a while on stored fat (savings), but eventually your body will begin to consume itself (debt) and eventually die (bankruptcy).
I understand the metaphor you're making, and I'm saying it doesn't apply to being of service to others. Service is not calories in an organism or dollars in a corporation: the metaphor you're making is not relevant. The labor one can perform in the service of others is not bounded by some sort of conservation-of-value principle. If someone comes to me with a problem and I can solve it by taking some action, that's value produced essentially from nothing. And if other people want to do the same thing, we can produce value from nothing through labor together.
Sometimes there are other inputs, which aren't as "from nothing" such as car parts or oil. But skilled labor is still a necessary component, to turning those components into a working car that is more valuable than the parts or oil.
And sure, some of those "not from nothing" components are absolutely non-negotiable for survival, like people having to eat and be sheltered. But I think it's pretty clear that a skilled laborer like Henson is able to give more value from his labor than he consumes in food and board.
The corporate model you're shoving everything into assumes we have to put a dollar value on everything and that dollars in versus dollars out has to line up, but forcing a service-based charity into that model is an impediment to its effectiveness. The entire point is to give as much as you can, even if that means giving more than you take.
And that makes perfect sense, by itself, without having to represent it in a balance sheet. And the only way you can shoehorn it into a balance sheet is by ignoring the entire point.
If not basic logic, it is a foundation of a few common sense premises and basic logic.
For an organization to output something of value to people they will generally need something of value as input. Money is the best way to convince someone to give you that input. Money is burgers, beers, drugs, and gasoline. Something you can sell for money or barter is a close second. There are other ways to get that input, but ultimately you are relying on someone being convinced into doing something for less in return than what they put in: military draft, patriotic enlistment, prison labor, slavery, volunteering, donations, taxes, robbery, inflationary money printing, non-competes, anti union laws, a nationwide campaign to convert to communism, etc.
I've been watching this thread and the comments in it unfold with some amazement. You make a simple and valid point and yet some people are unable to even step out of the capitalist mindset for a second to see that it is perfectly possible to add value to society without a profit motive. At some level this should probably be expected but I can't help being a bit shocked by it. Thanks for keeping up your end (and in a respectful way, no less).
What you've said is vague enough to be completely meaningless. Use relevant, specific words, rather than "stuff" and "organism", and it becomes quickly clear that what you're saying is total nonsense.
If someone has all their basic needs met, what mechanism would cause them to fail if they choose to produce more value (through labor) than the value required to meet their basic needs?
So, plenty of stuff in, so they can produce value through labor. Reduce stuff in to no longer have their needs met and expect them to keep up that labor. Think that'll go on forever?
If an organization only gives and never receives, it'll surely run out of stuff to give, won't it?
If someone has all their basic needs met, what mechanism would cause them to fail if they choose to produce more value (through labor) than the value required to meet their basic needs?
If they're only getting just enough to subsist (has all their basic needs met), they probably don't have a lot of extra energy to produce more value. You need to eat to have energy to work, more so than just the bare minimum to live. They also probably won't be very effective at working if they only have the bare minimum to survive, since that doesn't include tools or places to actually work.
If some people only had a few hundred calories to eat a day, a basic sleeping mat, and a simple roof over their heads their basic needs will be met and will continue living but they probably won't be very good at producing much additional value. They won't be good at forming a symphony, as they don't have any instruments. They won't be good building things, since they won't have hammers or nails or saws or wood or any other construction materials (those fall outside the "basic needs").
So you'd probably need more than just the "basic needs".
And then once again, if they are expected to put out more than what they're getting in, they probably won't live very long. If you're only consuming a few hundred calories but putting out a couple thousand a day, you're not long for this world.
> If they're only getting just enough to subsist (has all their basic needs met), they probably don't have a lot of extra energy to produce more value. You need to eat to have energy to work, more so than just the bare minimum to live. They also probably won't be very effective at working if they only have the bare minimum to survive, since that doesn't include tools or places to actually work.
Let me rephrase since you're seemingly willfully missing the point: If someone has all their basic needs met plus enough to have energy, what mechanism would cause them to fail if they choose to produce more value (through labor) than the value required to meet their basic needs plus enough to have energy?
> And then once again, if they are expected to put out more than what they're getting in, they probably won't live very long. If you're only consuming a few hundred calories but putting out a couple thousand a day, you're not long for this world.
Input and output are obviously not measured in calories. Again it seems you're willfully missing the point.
I live pretty frugally, and easily live on ~$30K/year. I have at points been paid $180K/year (annualized) for significant periods of time. If I chose to do the same amount of work as when I made $180K/year, live on $30K/year, and give away the other $150K/year in work, receiving no income for it, by what mechanism would I wither away and die?
Let me rephrase since you're seemingly willfully missing the point: all your examples are clearly going above and beyond the basic needs.
> I live pretty frugally, and easily live on ~$30K/year. I have at points been paid $180K/year (annualized) for significant periods of time. If I chose to do the same amount of work as when I made $180K/year, live on $30K/year, and give away the other $150K/year in work, receiving no income for it, by what mechanism would I wither away and die?
So, clearly well above and beyond the basic needs, huh? I bet even the ~$30k/yr includes some amount of personal comforts, more than just the absolute bare minimum to survive? Probably meeting more than just the basic needs?
Let me rephrase since you're seemingly willfully missing the point, if someone is only getting the basic needs, they don't have anything left to give. Because otherwise they'd inherently be getting more than the basic needs, by evidence of being able to give some away without being below the basic needs.
Let me rephrase since you're seemingly willfully missing the point, if you need 5 units of something, and are given 5 units of something, how many units of something do you have left over to share? 5 - 5 = ??? And if you're given 7 or 8 of those units, clearly you were given more than just the basic need of 5, right?
You're able to produce that labor because you at some point had more than the basic needs to survive. And if you continue to only get the basic needs to survive, you literally won't have the energy to do it anymore or you won't continue to have as useful of knowledge or have access to the computing for that labor or tools or what have you. Getting the tools for generating that value goes above the basic needs of survival.
The same concept goes for that tool repair collective talked about in the sibling comment. If the organization isn't being refreshed with replacement parts for the broken tools or doesn't have a place to store things or doesn't have a place to work on stuff or energy to run a forge or what not, they won't be very effective at being a tool repair collective. Eventually the things they do have will fall apart and need "new" stuff to come in to keep it up. They'll need more than just having a small amount of food and a roof over their heads for the tool repair collective to be useful, more than just the basic needs of survival.
If all I'm given is a 150sqft prison cell of an apartment with a toilet and a sink and a loaf of bread and some beans a day, I'll survive. My basic needs are met. I probably won't be able to start up a tool repair collective though, I can't run a forge on a loaf of bread. A sink isn't a useful hammer. I won't have any books to tell me how to actually build or use a forge. And I'll probably tire pretty quickly since I'll barely have any extra calories.
> Let me rephrase since you're seemingly willfully missing the point: all your examples are clearly going above and beyond the basic needs.
Sure, I'm not contesting that point, which is why I rephrased to specifically agree with that point. You should read the post you're responding to.
Given that's the part of what I'm saying that you continue to focus on, you're still missing the point.
> Let me rephrase since you're seemingly willfully missing the point, if you need 5 units of something, and are given 5 units of something, how many units of something do you have left over to share? 5 - 5 = ??? And if you're given 7 or 8 of those units, clearly you were given more than just the basic need of 5, right?
I understand that if you only focus on one unit, that there are a lot of cases where units must be conserved. If you eat 2500 calories a day, you can't expend more than 2500 calories a day without running into problems. Obviously. Nobody is disagreeing with you on that completely irrelevant point.
It's completely irrelevant, because as it turns out, nobody gives a shit how many calories of software development you do. That's not how the value of software development is measured. If you consume 2500 calories a day and expend some fraction of it on 8 hours of software development per day, 8 hours of software development is worth more than 2500 calories of food in most contexts.
And sure, there's other inputs which are necessary to do software development besides calories, but as it turns out, no matter how many things you add as "necessary", software development seems to come out ahead, as evidenced by the fact that lots of people, myself included, are able to work as software developers and buy a whole lot of junk that nobody could reasonably argue enables them to produce value through software development. If you add up the value of the inputs in the form of food, housing, entertainment, travel, education, computers, and whatever else you think is necessary for optimal software development in a year, the fact is, I've produced an order of magnitude more value than that in the form of software development in the same year. The equation isn't even close to balanced. Going beyond basic needs doesn't change anything about this.
> No, even charities and non-profits need to make money—they need to make a profit, or break even exactly— otherwise they will cease to exist.
This is the original comment in this chain that I was really wanting to address and build on. Charities and non-profits need to have some kind of input more than just existing, or else they probably won't achieve their goals. If the FSF stopped being able to host things and potentially sponsor free software and lobby for the goals of free software, if a scholarship foundation's grants exceeded their incomes for too long, if the tool collective stopped getting parts of fuel to run the forge, they'll eventually for all practical purposes cease to be. If the inputs fall below the outputs, there will eventually be a time where the outputs stop. This was my main point. Do you disagree?
> If you add up the value of the inputs in the form of food, housing, entertainment, travel, education, computers, and whatever else you think is necessary for optimal software development in a year
Let me rephrase since you're seemingly willfully missing the point: all that stuff is beyond the basic needs. The fact you can work as a software developer is evidence of you having access to more than the basic needs for some period of time. You have computers. You have an education. You probably have an internet connection. You don't need computers to survive. You don't need much of an education to survive. You don't need an internet connection to survive. You don't need Linux to survive. You don't need GCC to survive. All of these things are massively above and beyond one's "basic needs". So if our standard is we'll just give people the basic needs, they won't be very good software developers.
I definitely agree, a software developer's labor will generate a massive ROI. I definitely agree, my employer isn't measuring my caloric expenditure and writing a paycheck based on that. Teaching a miner better mining strategies, equipping a miner with better mining tools, giving a miner better geologic analysis, etc will also massively increase a miner's ROI. But if I never had a computer, and I never had an internet connection, and I never had an education, I probably wouldn't be in software. If you just put an uneducated person in a mine without any tools or guidance, they won't be a very good miner. All of those things are above one's basic needs.
So arguing all we need to do is give people some "basic needs" and they'll magically create tons of extra value is a bit absurd. They need tools. They need education. These are all above and beyond the basic needs.
> This is the original comment in this chain that I was really wanting to address and build on. Charities and non-profits need to have some kind of input more than just existing, or else they probably won't achieve their goals. If the FSF stopped being able to host things and potentially sponsor free software and lobby for the goals of free software, if a scholarship foundation's grants exceeded their incomes for too long, if the tool collective stopped getting parts of fuel to run the forge, they'll eventually for all practical purposes cease to be. If the inputs fall below the outputs, there will eventually be a time where the outputs stop. This was my main point. Do you disagree?
Well, I'd have to wonder what units you're using that you think are relevant for all inputs and outputs. You might, for example, consider what units you'd measure "all of the inputs you think are necessary for software development" and whether that's an appropriate unit for measuring "software" in.
> Let me rephrase since you're seemingly willfully missing the point: all that stuff is beyond the basic needs.
Agreed! I never disagreed, I merely misspoke initially.
But I've amended that error two posts ago and you're still ranting on about how I don't understand all of this is beyond basic needs. You're trying to argue with me on a point we agree on. Until you stop doing that, it's clear you aren't reading what I'm writing, so I'm not sure why I'd keep writing it.
My need for homeostasis is independent of the economic system in which I live, certainly. But that does not refute GP's point that it's difficult "to create legal organizations that help people without the assumption of a profit motive" in our society.
For example: if my basic necessities were covered by something like a UBI, I could spend my time teaching math/art/code/whatever. If I were a medieval peasant, to take another example, I'd be subsisting on my own farm and after the harvest (and after paying the lord a hefty amount of it) I might have some time to help neighboring villagers repair their tools. That is to say: the need for survival does not necessarily imply the need to have a society organized around profit-seeking.
That we _do_ live in such a society today is a matter of history, not logic. The structuring of human society around profit-seeking (or capitalism more generally) is a relatively recent historical phase (what, about 600 years, maybe?) -- it was not inevitable and there's no logical reason to assume that it will go on forever.
> I might have some time to help neighboring villagers repair their tools
Sure, but you'd still probably need to somehow gather additional resources to make that tool repair collective effective. You'd probably want to somehow acquire additional tools, maybe build a place to store spare parts, acquire spare parts and inventory them, etc.
Organizations today don't need to be profit seeking. I'm a member of many such groups which don't seek profit. We still ask for donations and/or have dues for members, not because we pay leadership any salaries but because some part of the mission does require acquiring things. If we didn't bring things in, we wouldn't be as successful at doing the mission.
You're ignoring a massive part of the tax code if you think all organizations in the US need a profit motive. But in the end almost all organizations probably need to acquire some stuff somehow, otherwise they'll probably fail.
If you insist that charity and abundance are both measured in dollars, then charity isn't really a good thing, because it can only start with sucking up a bunch of resources, far beyond what you need. This model of charity is a farce: having accumulated resources they have no right to, the rich get to do good when and where it's convenient for them, giving away resources that weren't theirs to give. Bill Gates accumulated billions selling the results of other people's labor during the height of the AIDS epidemic, the Rwandan Genocide, the crack epidemic, the war on drugs, rising homelessness, etc., only founding the Gates foundation in 2000. We're supposed to applaud him for ignoring problems for 25 years so he can look good taking on a few politically uncontroversial problems now? No thanks.
As it turns out, skilled labor is a resource that can be given charitably, without having to amass vast resources at other people's expense. Paul Farmer or Jonas Salk have changed more lives than the Gates foundation, without accumulating "abundance"--Jonas Salk even refused to patent the polio vaccine.
Free time is also a form of abundance. Generally this surplus is achieved by living within one's means. Producing more than one consumes is the basic form of profit. Individuals can realize this through leisure or savings. The surplus can be applied for their subjective charitable ends or reinvested into the market. Even there, I'd caution against divorcing charity from the market. Despite screeds to the contrary, charity has a market value unto itself.
Gates is a problematic figure for other reasons, but the idea that all profit is theft and therefore abundance is impossible within the market is a bit absurd. The profit motive is what creates abundance. How individualschoose to spend their profits is an individualdecision.
Before you can act charitably, you need the requisite resources. Obsessing over the units of measure is completely besides the point. Time, skills or goods must be acquired in advance. Hard leftists have a penchant for misconstruing market incentives. Greed, uncharitable hoarding and immoral behavior is an option in the market. However it is not a predetermined outcome. The article speaks to this. The charitably minded auto-mechanic is free to deploy his resources in the way that best suits his ends.
Contrast this voluntary charity with state mandated coercion. Violence is implicit. Central planners have little to no incentive to create abundance. Class based subsidies often create resentment and divide communities. As you observe, inter-class and inter-caste conflicts are often used in service of the state's largess. Voluntary market systems have no issue with voluntary charity. To the contrary, they create the conditions of abundance necessary for charity.
> The profit motive is what creates abundance.
Abundance for whom? Surplus is allocated by the few at the top (board of directors, c-suite, etc.). Why should they choose to give it to the workers? Walmart and McDonalds certainly understand this -- pay your employees low enough that they qualify for food stamps, and you'll be able to make the taxpayers foot the bill ("government largesse").
There is obviously nothing wrong with charity per se; GP is simply pointing out the obvious inefficiency in using charity to improve the lives of the poor (for example). Why not just pay them more to begin with (say through a democratic organization of the workplace in which no worker would ever choose to pay themselves below-subsistence wages)? Instead, we let money accumulate at the top, and then charity sometimes trickles a tiny bit of it back down.
> Contrast this voluntary charity with state mandated coercion. Violence is implicit.
By state-mandated coercion do you mean taxes to fund welfare programs? Violence is already implicit in the creation and perpetuation of the working poor. Welfare is a necessary tool to make sure that the poor are not so starved that they might rise up against the ruling class, "having nothing to lose but their chains". Again the inefficiency here is clear -- welfare would be unnecessary if our basic needs were met. Welfare would be unnecessary if workers had democratic control of their own workplaces. Instead, we have a "voluntary" market in which the worker is coerced to participate at risk of starvation and rewarded by wages that have not kept up with increases in productivity for 40 years. The market thus violently creates the _need_ for charity.
> [T]he idea that all profit is theft and therefore abundance is impossible within the market is a bit absurd. The profit motive is what creates abundance.
I didn't say "all profit", and I didn't say "within the market". Profit is fine and can even be necessary to meet one's needs--the problem arises when people begin accumulating well beyond their needs while others are struggling to meet their needs. If you want a more accurate representation of what I'm saying it's this: Abundance is theft. Abundance and scarcity cannot coexist in a just society.
The way I see it, labor is what creates value. Organizing labor is itself a form of labor which creates value, but often the organizers are self-serving, structuring things in such a way that they receive a disproportionate portion of the results of the collective labor, far beyond the value that their organizing labor provides.
Profit motive is one way to incentivize labor, but there are other reasons why people perform labor. One such reason is simply because we want to provide value to each other: pro-social motive. And unlike profit motive, pro-social motive doesn't motivate people to amass gigantic amounts of resources while others suffer in scarcity.
> How individuals choose to spend their profits is an individual decision.
And when people make bad decisions, they should be treated accordingly.
> Before you can act charitably, you need the requisite resources.
Sure, but the requisite resources isn't billions, or even millions of dollars. Nothing is stopping you from helping people right now, with the resources you have.
> Greed, uncharitable hoarding and immoral behavior is an option in the market.
There is no such thing as "charitable hoarding"--the phrase "uncharitable hoarding" is redundant.
The question is, why are hard rightists so insistent that greed, hoarding, and immoral behavior must be options? Why is it desirable to have that as an option?
> However it is not a predetermined outcome. The article speaks to this. The charitably minded auto-mechanic is free to deploy his resources in the way that best suits his ends.
A few selfish people siphoning off the majority of the profit from millions of people's labor can both drive millions into scarcity, creating a greater need for charity, and take up the resources created by their employee's labor which otherwise might have been used charitably. Sure, a few people here and there can find ways to buck the trend, but with rent-seekers on all sides, it can be a great deal of people's charitable labor is sucked up by greed rather than need.
> Contrast this voluntary charity with state mandated coercion. Violence is implicit. Central planners have little to no incentive to create abundance. Class based subsidies often create resentment and divide communities. As you observe, inter-class and inter-caste conflicts are often used in service of the state's largess. Voluntary market systems have no issue with voluntary charity. To the contrary, they create the conditions of abundance necessary for charity.
I'm not proposing state mandated coercion, so you can drop that straw man. Collective labor and cultural change that causes greedy people to be ostracized are much better solutions.
In a democracy, central planners are incentivized to create value by threat of (non-violent) removal from their position. This breaks down, of course, when you start allowing people to amass huge amounts of resources and then invest a portion of it in buying elections.
I'll add that the contrast between authoritarian communism (which, again, I'm not proposing) and unbridled capitalism, is not as large as you seem to think. Class creates resentments now, because so many are living in scarcity while a few accumulate resources far beyond their needs or contributions to society. Violence is implicit now, with wars driven by greed, prisons driven by profit creating a slave class, and violence driven by poverty and disfranchisement. You're worried about charity being involuntary, but what we have now is that instead of charity being involuntary, giving a portion of your labor to the already-rich is involuntary.
None of the problems of communist authoritarianism which you point out, are solved by capitalist authoritarianism where the rich rule.
> To the contrary, they create the conditions of abundance necessary for charity.
To reiterate, abundance, as in billionaires, is not necessary for charity, and in fact, charity is hampered by this sort of abundance.
Judging by your comment history, you appear to live in the US.
As a brit who grew up during her time in power, I want to say the Thatcher was a vile, vindicive. and spiteful person who blighted countless lives in my country and community. Using her as an exemplar of morality is abhorrent.
Talking about ideals is nice and all, but unfortunately we live in reality. Bob can't help Chuck over there unless Bob can afford to be charitable.
Put another way, you need both will and power to do something. Just wanting to be charitable never helped anyone, you also need the means to be charitable.
...which very few people have, because that ability has been disproportionately allocated to a few people who often choose not to be charitable.
The power to take charitable action does not require vast resources to be concentrated in a few individuals, and in fact concentrating vast resources in a few individuals often prevents charitable action from occurring.
It doesn't take "vast resources concentrated in few individuals" to effect charity, but a given individual needs to have most if not all of his own needs and desires satisfied first before he can start giving to others.
The Good Samaritan helped because he was doing well in life and could afford to help someone out. If he was a beggar he wouldn't (read: can't) help. The Good Samaritan is remembered because he had good intentions and money to turn his good intentions into good actions.
I'm no Christian, but do you get it that the parable of the Good Samaritan is allegorical? It's not about a historical "remembered" event, or about money as a necessary precondition for moral behaviour, or about "will and power" [1] as you put it upthread. It's about how compassion displayed by a member of an excluded group, despite their being oppressed, to a member of the parable-teller's group demonstrates our universal vulnerability and mutual dependency.
Thatcher was so inured by her own harsh, judgemental worldview that not only couldn't she properly recognise the point of the story, but her misinterpretation actually contradicts its essential meaning.
[1] were you intentionally referencing Nietzsche there?
Here's the thing everyone seems to not understand or deliberately ignore: The Good Samaritan can't be compassionate if he isn't sufficiently well off first. No one can be.
Whether the Good Samaritan wants to be compassionate to someone is irrelevant, he could be compassionate because he could afford to. Without the means, his desire to be compassionate would end as just a desire and we wouldn't be here talking about him.
>were you intentionally referencing Nietzsche there?
