On The Tenant: Non-profit Contradiction – Don’t be Grateful for Table Scraps
The housing sector is drowned in non profits offering rent assistance, legal defense, services for oppressed communities, etc. These services can be very important for some individuals and this truth fuels the demand that we be grateful to them and that we do not voice our grievances. Other working folk pride themselves in not taking “handouts” and living off what they earn. This may derive from a noble impulse, but misunderstands where this “charity” originates. Not from kindness, but from theft.
Non-profits may derive their funds from three sources, which we will find out is only one source. First, working people make donations from their hard earned wages. Second, capitalists make donations from their profits. And profits are stolen from the fruit of worker’s labor. Third a non-profit may receive grants from the government. Government money comes from taxes on income and on profits. Income either derives from the wages of working people or the exploitation of working people. Profits, as we have established, are stolen from the workers. So all three sources are ultimately one source: the sweat of working people. Every cent in a non-profit’s bank or in the government coffers came from the value generated by laboring people.
Must we then be grateful for these ‘alms’? No, they simply return to us some of what has been taken from us. They are not alms, but what we are owed. This does not mean at each and every step we need to be outright hostile to non profit organizations. However when these organizations fail us, mislead us, or harm us we can and should be angry. When the time comes we should organize against them. They are not all friends by virtue of giving us some of our money back.