I'm in favour of charities.<\/p>\n
I think charities do an essential job in civil society of drawing attention to\u00a0unmet\u00a0need that signals \u00a0change required in\u00a0government\u00a0policy.<\/p>\n
I also think well run charities can innovate ways of meeting that need.<\/p>\n
But it is only in the most exceptional of cases (and the RNLI is an anachronism that partly proves the exception) can a charity or charities actually address a need by themselves.<\/p>\n
In my opinion this is likely to be the case for a long time to come. We have a society that is good at creating need. I stress the word need here - which is quite different from want. Need is for those things we must have to exist in society - an issue I explore in some depth in The\u00a0Courageous\u00a0State<\/a>. Whilst business continues to underpay many, overpay a few, fail to invest, does not create enough jobs and does not create enough of the goods and services that meet need\u00a0whilst\u00a0instead focussing on those that fuel want we will continue to require charity.<\/p>\n I think charity has to draw attention to those weaknesses in our society that\u00a0create\u00a0need. That is, and always has been its primary purpose.<\/p>\n It is impossible for charity to meet all those needs - most especially when it is\u00a0dependent\u00a0upon gifts of those dependent upon maintaining the status quo to do its work.<\/p>\n It is precisely\u00a0because\u00a0that\u00a0stranglehold\u00a0of dependency on wealth \u00a0in the\u00a0charity\u00a0sector\u00a0has\u00a0to be broken that I support tax\u00a0relief\u00a0for charity.<\/p>\n But let's never pretend - as I\u00a0heard\u00a0it said last night - that charity\u00a0spends\u00a0money more effectively than\u00a0government. It doesn't. It's subject to all the\u00a0same\u00a0vanities, human errors, prejudices, procedural\u00a0constraints\u00a0and sheer\u00a0frustrations\u00a0as\u00a0government\u00a0and business. And it is only by continually reminding itself that it exists to challenge the orthodoxy of society that creates the need for its services that a charity can retain any of the edge that is needed to\u00a0justify\u00a0its\u00a0existence. And when most charity is needed to address the issues arising from the inappropriate distribution of\u00a0wealth, income, power and\u00a0influence\u00a0in\u00a0society\u00a0then to argue, as I also heard last night, that charity must work with and\u00a0support\u00a0the\u00a0request\u00a0of those who hold that\u00a0power\u00a0is just wrong in my opinion.<\/p>\n Charities have to be\u00a0unreasonable\u00a0using\u00a0George\u00a0Bernard Shaw's\u00a0definition. He said (and I know the language is outdatedly sexist but I quote him in the\u00a0context\u00a0of his time):<\/p>\n The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Unfortunately I did not hear that sentiment from the Give it Back\u00a0George\u00a0campaign to retain tax\u00a0relief\u00a0for the\u00a0wealthiest\u00a0on all the gifts they make to charity. And that is exactly what is wrong with\u00a0their\u00a0campaign and why my alternative approach<\/a> to tax\u00a0relief\u00a0for charities - that assumes all donors are equal, and\u00a0treats\u00a0them as such is so much more in accordance with the principles of charity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’m in favour of charities. I think charities do an essential job in civil society of drawing attention to\u00a0unmet\u00a0need that signals \u00a0change required in\u00a0government\u00a0policy. I
Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15292\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}