Can a Nation Survive on Charity?
Can charity carry a nation when government stops working? Andrew Carnegie's philanthropy and the New Deal offer two different answers to the obligations we owe one another. One leaves help to the giver's judgment. The other makes it a public duty, without ending the political argument over who should pay.
Written during the 2025 government shutdown and the dispute over food assistance, this essay asks why working families remain so vulnerable to failures in either system. The argument moves beyond choosing between billionaires and bureaucracies to the gap between wages and the cost of…
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