Not long ago I read a review of a book that criticizes our current system of tax preferences for charitable giving. The book made fairly cogent arguments, not entirely new to me but carried further to logical extremes. The core of the argument was that philanthropy puts too much policy-making authority in the hands of a small group of rich people.
On the one hand, that's not 100% crazy. On the other hand, I can't imagine a legal framework in which philanthropy is disallowed. Sure, tax deductions for charitable giving could be rolled back (they are already fairly restrictive at the top end), but it's not like we could easily envision outlawing volunteer organizations or stopping people from funding them.
I think one of the big and unappreciated aspects of charitable giving and volunteering is how it educates people about how hard it is to fix problems in the public sphere, to bring public goods to pass. If anything, throwing small amounts of money and hours at a problem on a local basis and then watching it not go away makes people appreciate the things that the state does. That's a pretty essential function of the whole endeavor, I'd say.
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