Monopolizing Charity
Way, way back in 1981, a then-40-year-old Bernie Sanders, barely 6 months into his first elected gig as mayor of Burlington, VT, proffered a bit of stark honesty. Per the NYTimes:
"I don't believe in charities," said Mayor Sanders, bringing a shocked silence to a packed hotel banquet room. The Mayor, who is a Socialist, went on to question the "fundamental concepts on which charities are based" and contended that government, rather than charity organizations, should take over responsibility for social programs.
Sanders may or may not still hold the belief he shared back in 1981. Nevertheless, per modern political rules, he should answer for it. And be challenged on a redux of this mindset, embodied in an effort by a "loose coalition of fringe groups" calling itself Unmasking Fidelity.
Unmasking Fidelity wants donor lists. Make that some donor lists, i.e. those with whom it disagrees. Furthermore, it wants the gateway organization that managed those donations to restrict future donations to 'approved' causes.
As a friend observed,
The first thing the Left does when getting into power is fund itself. The second thing it does is cut off funding to anyone else.
While Unmasking Fidelity does deign to permit private donations to the 'worthy,' Sanders (at least the younger iteration) wouldn't even concede that much. The last piece of today's trifecta: the Democrats' voting reform bill, which among other things imposes a whole lot of control on political spending and allocates tax dollars to political ads.
All this distills the leftist mindset down to its true essence. Your money is, above all else, theirs to spend and allocate as they deem best. Why oppose spending your own money on the causes and politicians of your choice? Because it threatens their power. Why oppose spending your own money on the charities you deem worthy? Because it erodes government dependence.
The Left hates competition. Competition can demonstrate how problems that the government insists it alone can solve can be solved without it. Competition can demonstrate better ways to solve problems. Competition can demonstrate how inefficient and dysfunctional government can be at the things it does. Competition can undermine blind loyalty to the state, and can defeat the straw man argument that, if government doesn't do something, it won't get done.
The Left loves control. Uncontrolled money might help the poor in ways that the government doesn't like. Uncontrolled money might put unapproved people in power. Uncontrolled money might promulgate messages that the Left doesn't want you to hear.
The Left's goal is to convince the public to forego its autonomy and independence in favor of deference and loyalty to the State.
David Mamet called socialism the abdication of responsibility. Here it is, writ large. Giving to or working for a charity is taking on a responsibility to help those who are worse off than one is. In calling for the state to fulfill that role, one lets one's self off the hook, and transfers the responsibility to the state. That mindset suits the government just fine, because it can infect thought regarding countless other aspects of life. The same applies, of course, for donating to the advocacy group or politician of your choice.
When a good or service is monopolized, people will, over time, start to lose the sense that the good or service could be provided in any other ways. The United States Post Office is a giant money pit, but too many people reflexively defend it against suggestions it be privatized or that it lose its monopoly on certain types of mail simply because they're convinced without evidence that it's the best way to provide postal service. People object to calls for cutting or reforming public welfare, because they're convinced without evidence that, without it, people would starve. If government prohibits alternatives, people won't be able to see that alternatives can, in fact, provide that which the government insists it alone can and should.
In order for socialism to be accepted (I won't say "to work," because it doesn't, hasn't and never will), individual liberty and freedom of choice need to be subordinated to loyalty to the collective. Keeping people from knowing alternatives and seeing them in effective action is vital to that pursuit. Monopolizing charity and political donations protects socialism from reality.
A version of this article first appeared at The Roots Of Liberty