[wintermutestwin]

I wonder if individuals stepping up decreases or increases the chance that government will solve problems that are clearly systemic in nature (and thus the responsibility of government to resolve).

Is charity making it easier for governments to shirk their responsibilities?

[mdip]

  > clearly systemic in nature

It's surprising to me how many people believe this. Are there systemic problems? Sure. Is the only solution to solve these? I hope not. I think some would like to convince the world that this is required. I'd love to see some good, practical, options that have been tried and have been successful, but so far capitalism appears to be the one that involves the least death/suffering.

Having been involved in charities, and having witnessed the destruction that a well meaning government program can bring, I'm not sure that even if charity is making it easier for governments to shirk their responsibilities that it would really be a bad thing. That's not coming from the position of "Big Government Bad(tm)" but rather a practical one -- at least as far as America is concerned, most of the money comes from Washington and it doesn't come without strings attached. It is the least efficient way to pay for something, and they are operating in a vacuum of information.

A (local) charity is in the community and knows what the community needs. The money is spent very efficiently, and there's not much of it to spend. They get taken advantage of less frequently, as well. Even injecting government into that situation breaks it. Once a large amount of money is a potential outcome, criminal activity is not far behind -- you see small organizations getting formed out of larger ones, spending 90% of donations on administration (spending all of that money on the appearance of being the right, small, charity ... because the real ones don't have the budget for lobbiests).

[wintermutestwin]

>The money is spent very efficiently

Doesn't the fact that there are systemic causes at the root of a problem means that trimming the branches is not an efficient manner of resolving the issue?

Note that I am asking this as someone who spends more than 1/2 of my life "trimming the branches."

Obviously, the way that government deals with systemic issues is highly flawed, but that is all tied up in the systemic issues that need to be resolved right?