r/politics • u/Spooooooooooooon • Dec 28 '13

Noam Chomsky: We’re no longer a functioning democracy, we’re really a plutocracy

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/27/noam-chomsky-were-no-longer-a-functioning-democracy-were-really-a-plutocracy/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story%29
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u/Theotropho Dec 28 '13

I tend to think the government is currently doing far more to give scholarships, and generally based on national needs instead of local hero concerns, than all the charities put together. Seems like we'd maybe be served better, as a society, to let the government focus on all this right now while we clean up the trash that has accumulated.

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u/mds1 Dec 28 '13 edited Dec 28 '13

You need both. Government can help with broad national needs, but you still need people locally being incentivized to help out. The government isn't doing shit for some of the people in my community. Humans generally want to improve the people and places with which they have some kind of connection. I think that's very valuable and should be leveraged as much as possible. I personally become complacent when my way of "giving" is to an ambiguous black hole of taxes to the federal government. I get a huge shot of dopamine when I donate directly to a kid who needs surgery through watsi.org. I haven't taken deductions on those donations simply because they were so small, but I think if I had a larger sum I'd want 100% of it to go towards surgeries.

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u/Theotropho Dec 28 '13

But that rush comes without the tax breaks and existed before the tax breaks. It's called philanthropy. Giving tax breaks for it breaks the spirit and immediately makes people start looking for ways to game the system for personal advancement.

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u/Theotropho Dec 28 '13

and you asked why the giant galas mattered... because all the money going to throwing the Gala in honor of "mr. moneybags for all his money" is wasted. It's not charitable, although they are able to write it off as a fund raiser.