PATRICK GARNER: Capitalism, Christianity and charity

A recent article written by Carlton Fletcher, “Nonprofits can’t meet all of community’s needs,” illuminated what most people living in Albany already know, that the community experiences crushing poverty, and regardless of the amount of churches and charity, the needs of the community are not being met. What is was not addressed in that article is that the very premise that churches and charity can provide solutions to poverty is a fallacious one.

Christianity has been given over 2,000 years to meet the needs of the world’s poor and has failed at every opportunity. Indeed there is a strong correlation with how impoverished a geographical region is with how religious it is, with the societies that have the highest standard of living in the world also being the societies that are the most atheist and agnostic. The most that religion can do is give people a sense of hope that if they behave in a certain way on earth, which generally correlates with how the ruling classes want them to behave, then ultimately they can escape their disappointing existence after they die and live in some form of utopia in the afterlife.

Likewise, charity has never solved the problem of poverty. What charity can do is place a bandage over the metaphorical wound of poverty by offering temporary relief, but it doesn’t do anything in the long term to change the economic structures that lead to poverty. Charity allows middle-income people a release for the guilt that they have living in a capitalist society knowing that they have more resources than others. People can drop off clothes at Goodwill or give a homeless person a few dollars and think that they have done a good deed for the day, and go about continuing to live their consumerist-oriented lives having paid their penance, which ultimately has solved nothing.

A prominent member of the community, City Council member B.J. Fletcher, whom Carlton Fletcher asserts is associated with generosity, was interviewed in his article. Rather than blame the failure of capitalism to meet the needs of the people, as I would have done if asked, B.J. blames a socialism that doesn’t exist in the United States, particularly not in Albany. She said “A lot of the problem is these folks who are able to work but don’t because they have everything — education, housing, food, transportation—given to them.” This statement is absurd because if all of those needs were being met, which government is capable of doing if it so chooses, then there wouldn’t be the needy to begin with. The reason people are in need of aid is that their wages are so low, they can’t afford those things that B.J. says are being given to them, and the U.S. taxpayer is left subsidizing businesses to provide a limited amount of safety nets because of how poorly the private sector treats its labor.

Channeling her inner Marie Antoinette, B.J. goes to say, “No one is entitled to live off the work of another,” seemingly oblivious to the fact that this is what she does, and is precisely why she is considered a successful person. She pays her workers relatively low wages, who in turn do the work for her, and allow her to become a wealthier person as a result. This is, in essence, the basics of capitalism, and why there are relatively few people, like B.J. with means, and millions more trapped in generational poverty with limited mobility, a byproduct of labor not receiving the fruits of their work, but it being taken from them by the wealthier employer.

My suggestion to the City Council would be to scrutinize the churches and non-profits, and claim eminent domain on any of them that aren’t pulling their weight in the community, as well as any abandoned businesses, and create jobs by handing the buildings over to workers who through shared governance can run their own businesses. Studies have suggested that businesses that are worker-led pull in more profit than top-down management businesses. It’s a radical departure from the status-quo, but Albany needs a break from the past if it is going to move forward.

Patrick Garner is an educator and critical theorist who studied under philosopher Slavoj Zizek at the European Graduate School in Switzerland. He was a recipient of the Southwest Georgia Top 40 under 40 in 2013, and is an active ultra-marathon runner.