Virtual Charity (was: For real ?)

[G*rd*n]

Charles Brown:
> 
> A forward.
> 
> For real ? Capitalism automatically turning into socialism ?
"""" 
> This is the ultimate in corporate sponsorship. You click a button, and a
> corporation donates food to people dying from starvation. You see who the
> corporation is, so you associate them with VERY positive action (or so they
> hope). And someone
> receives a meal because you took a moment and showed interest. You commit
> nothing but 30 seconds or so.
> 
> Now, there is a web site which is sponsored by several
> corporations. Every time that you go to the site and click
> on the "Donate Free Food" button, one of those corporations
> will make a donation to feed a starving person for one day.
> You can do this once a day, and it costs nothing to you
> personally.
> 
> Are you interested? Click the link below.
> http://www.thehungersite.com/index.html

""""

Well, it's not socialism -- the ownership or control of the
means of production by the working class -- and it's not
even social democracy.  It might be charity.  In any case,
I thought it was interesting.  I've been discussing this
here and there on the Net; some of you may be amused by my
most recent excrescence.  I'm especially interest in the
economics of it -- that is, does anyone actually get fed?

"""

   FEED THE HUNGRY

    A neat website. All you do is click a button

    and somewhere in the world some hungry person gets a meal to

    eat at no cost to you.

   

    The food is paid for by corporate sponsors.

   

    All you do is go to the site and click. Visit the site and pass the

    word.

   

    http://www.thehungersite.com

Needless to say, I found something to complain about.

I wrote and asked them why, if they had the food, they
didn't just feed the hungry without waiting for some idle
nerd in a rich country to click on a button.  I also noted
my response in various discursive venues.  On Usenet I was
told "The idle nerd is supposed to see the advertisements
on the site, and [ thus ] the sponsors will pay for the
meals. It's a way to make publicity a little useful to the
world, and the people who made the site understand it."  In
_Salon's_ Table Talk, somewhat more middle-brow than
Usenet, I was told that I was a reprehensible person for
even questioning this flight of corporate largesse.

In both venues, I pointed out that my objections had not
been answered.  In explanation I said that underlying this
scheme, one must assume, is the already very dubious
proposition that the feeding of the poor (or the salvation
of the environment, or whatever) must come as a by-product
of business success -- "ten percent of our profits go to
cleaning up the oceans", etc.  If it's the hungry, the
hungry are held hostage to the success of business's
advertising program and subsequent revenues.  Another way
of putting it would be the old _National_Lampoon_ joke
magazine cover showing a cute dog with the legend "Buy this
magazine or we'll shoot this dog."

But the businessman could say, at least, that some kind of
economic activity had to be generated for _him_ to be able
to feed the hungry.  It's dubious, but there's some
physical-world logic to it.

In the case of the web site, _nothing_ is being generated
economically.  At the most, some electrons are being
wiggled and a hit counter is changed.  Other than that,
it's _fiction_.  So from what are the hungry being fed, and
to what are they being held hostage while they wait for
idle nerds to click?  My guess is -- nothing.

This is, I think, the advent of virtual charity.
"""

Gordon