Pay by card? Promotional item? Who is more deserving: a hospice, a youth group, or those with a long term medical condition? Pick now before you’re out the supermarket door. The post-checkout charitable plebiscite is an established feature of the food run. For many the brightly coloured discs (often branded) dropped into the clear plastic ballot box are an intrinsic aspect of the weekly shop.
Ostensibly such facilities can only be a positive. Local good causes feel a benefit and it is local people who make the decision as to the direction of the donation. Surely not even the most sardonic of commentators could possibly have an issue with such things. Well. Here we are…
I feel at pains to point out it is not the work of charities and non-profits themselves that draws my ire. It is more that the disc-based democracy of the supermarket is emblematic of the belief that “doing good” is an à la carte preference rather than something borne out of collective duty and collective need.
In a number of cases charitable organisations have stepped forward in an attempt to alleviate the pain of austerity. An austerity which has resulted in millions of pounds slashed from local services. We cannot allow third party stop-gap measures to become the new normal. Where charities and non-profits are offering essential services rather than those that are solely complimentary, then our political system and our government has been found wanting.
The system in which we live has a surfeit of need. The work non-profits do to fulfil that need is laudable, but I confess that the appreciation I feel for those working to alleviate blights in society are tempered by the knowledge that such blights exist. There is no ‘rather uplifting’ feeling at the inexorable rise of charitable foodbanks - instead a reminder that the fiscal corpulence of those at the top appears to correlate with the literal malnutrition of those at the bottom. (Dawn Foster’s excellent piece “Foodbank Britain” in the first edition of Tribune covers the use of foodbanks in greater detail).
There is a belief in some quarters that if only corporations and individuals paid the tax they owe then societal needs would be resolved (‘We just want your tax for good’ ran a tagline I once crafted addressing an entertainer who was embroiled in a tax-avoidance issue). I stand in full solidarity with those calling for tax justice, as it will ensure much-needed resources to combat a number of social ills. However, this can only be a half measure if we do not challenge the austerity we have already endured.
So what is the solution? Well, to my mind, we must ensure that those collective organisations of the working class (principally Trade Unions and the Labour Party) are forums which consistently challenge the political status quo and offer effective remedies to societal ills. We advocate for public services that are properly funded and publicly accountable. We need to fight not only for the preservation of existing services but for the restoration of those services that have been lost to austerity - even if it is currently covered by a third party.
Speaking on access to healthcare, the illustrious Nye Bevan asserted: ‘private charity and endowment, although inescapably essential at one time, cannot meet the cost of all this. If the job is to be done, the state must accept financial responsibility.’ (In Place of Fear). I believe that this extends to countless services. Where there is a perceived break between public need and public provision, we run the risk of having privatised principle, compartmentalised compassion, and outsourced solidarity.
Socialism is that curious distaste for the suffering of others and the resolve with which to change it. We change society for the better when public needs are met by public services in the hands of those they serve.
