[maccard]

I'm definitely in the pro-government-involvement camp but

> There are no examples in the history of the world of charity sufficiently providing for the needs of the poor at a national scale.

This is just false. Literally right now we have the case where food banks are filling in the gaps of the UK government at a national scale.

[suture]

Remove UK government support for food for the poor. This includes school lunches and whatnot. Will the charities be able to fill the need? The answer is no. Charities can fill gaps but not beyond that.

[QuarterReptile]

This is true in the same way that US rail wouldn't be able to fill commuter demand if every ICE car disappeared. It should surprise no one that an organization accustomed to, and thus built for, one thing would fail to instantaneoulsy shift to doing a somewhat similar thing on a completely different scale.

[suture]

I disagree. My claim is not that charity wouldn’t be able to fill the demand right now in the scenario I presented. My claim is that it would never be able to fill the demand. Indeed, charity has never fulfilled the basic needs of the poor in any country ever.