The Poor We Will Have Always With Us

I was talking to my friend about charity and Giving What We Can. I was making an 'argument' that went like this: if you want to do good (and we should take that as given!) then isn't the most good to give to the worst off. And if everyone gives to the worst off, and when he's no longer the worst off, give to the new worst off, and so on, then eventually everyone will be equal. The rich will have given away all that made them rich and the poor will no longer be poor. That seems like the end-point of charity, and of the GWWC idea, to me.

But then she said, well, suppose everyone in the world, one day, has exactly £100. They're all equal. But by the end of the day, some of them have spent all their money, or even borrowed money and spent more - wasted it, say - and others have made money, sold things or whatever. Now at the end of theday, they're not equal any more. So what do you do about it? I sat there for longer than I should have done, thinking about this. I mean, ok, what is the answer? I don't know.

But that isn't the point, is it? It seems to me like an evasive sort of argument. Because the real people that charity helps are not poor through their own bad choices. They're poor because they were are in the wrong place at the wrong time. And we're rich because of the opposite. No matter how much we earned the money we have here (and my friend worked hard for what she has, which must make it so much harder to think like this), we really started off already so far ahead of the average, just by being born where we were.

Yes it makes some sense to think about what the outcome scenario is for all this charity. But how can we let it stop us working to get there in the meantime. Maybe all that's needed to say is that the one-day-after-equality-world is a hell of a lot more equal than the world is now. It's taken thousands of years to get here, so shouldn't we start reversing it? Because it's not really about reaching the end. I think that is what Jesus meant when he said, 'the poor you will always have with you.' Maybe we really can change the world eventually. But right now, the poor are with us, and they need our help, and it is right to help them.