Silence Can Kill: Speaking Up to End Hunger and Make Our Economy Work for Everyone - Book - Page 11
Preface
of inequalities without a job or working at very low wages. So while reducing hunger in our nation through the quick-fix of food assistance, we
should also tackle the more basic and enduring solution of a more inclusive
economy so that all who can and should work have a chance to earn an
adequate living.
For that reason the second half of the book focuses on making the economy work for everyone. Chapter 8 addresses the social and racial inequalities
that plague us; chapter 9, the erosion of family life; chapter 10, the dilemma
of taxes and soaring deficits; and chapter 11, the way toward fixing an economy that is strong in aggregate but fails too many of us. An agreement to
work together to end hunger would enable us to see more clearly how to
make our economy function well for everyone, a challenge that currently
leaves us spinning our wheels.
Make America great? Now there is a lens of hope for doing it.
In projecting that hope, this book affirms both charity and justice, because both are necessary for ending hunger and making our economy fair
and inclusive. Charity is often contrasted with justice. That is a useful but
also misleading distinction because it oversimplifies. Charities working to
reduce hunger and poverty are offering help that is due recipients by virtue
of their need and our common humanity. The worth of those being helped
is not dependent upon our judgment of their worthiness. The assistance
offered is often a hand up as well as a hand out, a way of helping people so
they can help themselves. There is a strong element of justice in that.
In reducing hunger and poverty, charities benefit both recipients and
donors. I have been involved in various ways for most of my life in supporting such agencies and have seen firsthand what a difference they can make
both here and abroad. The difference is not trivial.
But I have also seen the limitations of charity. As a Lutheran parish
pastor, I lived and worked with a racial diversity of people on New York
City’s Lower East Side, many of them economically poor. Their struggles
prompted me and others to launch a national citizens’ lobby against hunger,
Bread for the World. Why a citizens’ lobby? Because conveying our views to
government leaders is a way in which each of us can help the entire nation
deal more effectively with hunger as well as the poverty that lies behind it.
Charity does much good, but not when it diverts attention from our
public responsibility. This book dispels the myth that charity is an adequate
response to hunger. Of course, free enterprise by itself cannot do so either.
Neither can the government nor families nor communities. None of these
alone can come close to ending hunger, but in combination we can eliminate
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