Why food banks?

Malcolm Swan considers a contemporary social issue

In New Milton, our Quaker Meeting has offered practical support to a local initiative where young people have started a food bank for the needy.  Tom Butler, former bishop of Southwark, in a ‘Thought for the Day’ on BBC Radio Four said that the number of food bank users could rise to nearly a quarter of a million this year – an increase of one third over 2012.

Vital as the food banks now appear to be, he questioned whether they are merely ‘applying a sticking plaster to social deprivation’. As far back as 1904 Joseph Rowntree, the York-based Quaker cocoa manufacturer and philanthropist, wrote:

Much of the current philanthropic effort is directed to remedy the more superficial manifestations of weakness and evil, while little thought is directed to search out their underlying causes… The soup kitchen in York never has difficulty in obtaining adequate financial aid, but an enquiry into the extent and causes of poverty would enlist little support.

Perhaps Joseph Rowntree was in advance of his times in recognising the limitations of treating the symptoms rather than the cause. He devoted much of his wealth to establishing trusts for research and political action, which were aimed at the elimination of the wider causes of poverty. These trusts are still at work today.

I am reminded of the words of the Brazilian archbishop, liberation theologian and social activist, Hélder Câmara (1909-1999), who famously said:

When I feed the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor are hungry they call me a communist.

In our present situation we are hardly likely to be labelled as communists, but perhaps we need to re-address the wider question of ‘Why food banks?’ – while continuing to support them as long as they remain an unfortunate necessity.

This article was originally published in a local paper in New Milton as a Quaker contribution to its weekly series of ‘Christian Comment’ articles.

---

Comments

I think as Quakers we find no contradiction in both supporting food banks and asking why they have come about in the first place. As an independent scholar in economics I have an answer to that question: it is the legacy of what I call ‘Friedmanism’, the free-market thought promoted my Milton Friedman. More on this at http://www.jnani.org/blog/. Join me in reversing Friedmanite inequity!

By mrking on 17th August 2013 - 14:38

---

Please login to add a comment