Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Why Socialism is Bad for Global Charity Works

There is quite a disturbing trend that has risen among college-aged people as the U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont has ushered in a trend of accepting and favoring of socialism among young American citizens. Now, it has long been true that college students were more disposed toward socialistic ideals. Yet, historically, the zeal for socialism is at its peak. Here, I argue against this new-found zeal for socialism on grounds that socialism or any form of statist ideologies is not conducive toward global charity works.

(It should quickly be noted that, in my economic view, the sets of policies that counts as a "statist ideology" in practice differ by countries for there are matters of practicalities to be considered, e.g. density of the population by sectors, population size of the country, geographic size of the country, GDP per capita, etc. Although we may hold conceptually what a statist ideology may be, no economic system will fit tightly into the concept unless we take practicalities of a system.)

     In pursuing global charity, it is of necessity that we should eliminate, or at least mitigate, practices of grave evils. Now, many may disagree between the conservative-liberal divide on what counts as evil. For example, many would surely be against me opposing abortion and legal redefining of marriage. But only those few who have deviant consciences would be in support of grave evils of systemic oppression of ethnic or religious groups and human trafficking.

     It is of no debate that, in order to improve the conditions, wealthier developed countries need to contribute in aiding the impoverished parts of the world. Now, there are two ways of going about this topic. One would obviously be foreign aid by countries. Another would be works done by NGOs and individual charity works.

     A socialist might say that, if a country gets more money from its citizens, it would consequently have more money to aid other countries in need, thereby benefiting the global community. This claim would of course assume that the bureaucracies of socialist (or statist) countries would be willing to send money to other nations, foregoing the opportunity to use more money on domestic projects. This is not always true. Denmark, who earns less than, U.S. consistently gives more in foreign aid in proportion to their GNI. Generally, the coveted 0.7% GNI targeted by the UN is not achieved by that many countries... only 5 countries achieved over 0.7% in 2013.

     Another objection against the socialist's claim is the fact that foreign aids are not flexible. They are tailored by contract to be used in particular areas and oftentimes given to the government that needs the aid. Now, it may be the case that the determined purpose for the funds may outlast its practicalities, and there is also the problem of being able to trust a government that may or may not be corrupt with large sums of money. If the central bureaucracy judges that they cannot trust unstable governments of third world countries, they would likely not trust them with their foreign aid. NGOs, however, due to their non-governmental nature, can spend their money on the people of the country they are aiding by tailoring to their needs, instead of giving money to the foreign government.

     Much can be said about the socialist's claim, but I will not address them due to spacial concerns. But I can say that socialist and statist policies that hinder charity through NGOs and individual charities. Suppose that we burden the top 1% of our nation with 90% tax rate. Some would be compelled to leave the country. For those who stay, they will nonetheless be significantly hindered in giving large sums of money to charity organizations. Here, we have a scenario where neither the government and NGOs can fully benefit. A large part of our world's charity works are done by Christian churches, the Catholic Church being the dominant one. Now, if the wealthiest are heavily taxed up to 90%, then they will also lose their capacity to tithe - a 10% of their income - to their churches. We are all familiar of how the Catholic Church is active in third world countries in helping out the poor. Imposing a socialist or statist policies would hinder their projects and actions of good will.

     Further, it should be noted that the importance of NGOs, when counted as a whole, is their flexibility and their ability to give insights. Different NGOs focus on different narrow aspects of injustice. For example, there is an NGO that builds schools for girls to be educated in hopes of rescuing them from systemic oppression of women. But another NGO finds out that, on her way to the school, she is raped. It is further found that, due to the ineffective law enforcement of the country, the rapist would reign freely without a fear of conviction. This fact compels her and other girls to skip out on school out of fear, and their parents to stop sending the girls to school. So the NGO would focus on improving the law enforcement of the country in need. This problem with the law enforcement would not have been noticed by the NGO seeking to educate, and they would consequently have wasted their money. It was through the NGO that focuses on legal justice the former were able to educate girls. This symbiotic relationships of different NGOs cannot be matched by what central bureaucracies can do alone.

     Another reason why socialism and statist ideologies can hinder the efforts toward global care is that, if NGO activities are lessened from people having less money to spend toward charity organizations, the NGOs will consequently have less people they are able to hire. In effect, they will have less experts to aid particular issues. There is a wide array of experts NGOs are able to send. Among many more, they include: lawyers, criminal investigators, educators, engineers, geologists, doctors, and social workers.

(An obvious objection from a socialist would be that the state can replace the charitable manpower lost. But of course, as stated above, this is assuming that the state bureaucracy would be willing to spend more money toward foreign powers instead of domestic interests, a foolish assumption to be had. Further, there is the problem of the central bureaucracy detecting problems of other countries.)

     As can be seen, socialism and other statist ideologies are not conducive to global charity. In fact, it appears that some liberal progressives' support for socialism is incompatible with their narrative of global progress by potentially limiting the resources - capital, specialized manpower, and innovations - sent to less developed worlds.


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