Charity and Libertarianism

charity  Outside of families and friendships, the ^*market makes the ^*economic world go around with great and ^*spontaneous ^*efficiency; which ^*political ^*aggression can only impede. We could have a world without charity, but not an advanced society without a market; because of the need for mass ^*economic calculation. However, charity is a cherry on the cake of ^*civilisation. We are better off with charity than without it, although it would not be so sorely needed—especially in ^*less-developed countries—if it were not for politics.

Genuine charity, being voluntary, is every bit as ^*libertarian as the market. So, it is a confusion—or disingenuous—for any critics of libertarianism to suggest that libertarians are against it. It is also ^*hypocritical of those critics when they are not really defending charity at all but, rather, ^*tax-^*extortion for the purpose of spending the ^*money raised thereby on their own preferred causes. More-serious critics sometimes ask how charity could possibly replace the amount of tax-extorted handouts for which the ^*state is responsible. The main reply is that such handouts are crowding out more-efficient market alternatives and some charities as well. If we reflect on the small percentage of any large ^*population who would be genuinely in need of charitable support (i.e., incapable of providing for themselves and without adequate prior insurance), we can see that very little charity should be enough to deal with this. In particular, given the compound loss to ^*growth that states cause by their vast yearly consumption, there would soon be (or would already have been) no real—rather than relative—^*poverty if this consumption were stopped (or if it had been stopped only a few decades ago).

As ^*wealth increases within a ^*society there is a real danger of over-subscription to charity, which creates a quasi-market for handouts that do no overall good; although people always have a ^*right to give away their own ^*honestly acquired money. ^*Competition among charitable organisations and their attempts to show that they are efficient can do a lot to prevent ^*waste, but some waste is inevitable; as charities sometimes develop the same empire-building and junketing that we see in state ^*bureaucracies. At least a donor can immediately stop supporting a charity if he discovers this.

(This is an entry from A LIBERTARIAN DICTIONARY: Explaining a Philosophical Theory [draft currently being revised]. Asterisks indicate other entries.)