What are some negatives and positives to using charity as a primary way to fund civic and economic sectors?

Question

I was wondering what are some advantages and disadvantages to using charity and outside resources to fund a community's civic and economic sectors? Such as: provides stability, takes away responsibility, etc.

Answer 1

The biggest negative is that people are not really all that charitable so things that really need to be done might not be. Also if it were voluntary only the most responsible member of the community would bear the burden for all. Economists call this the free rider problem. People who advocate this rarely suggest that we fund the military this way but only advocate it for programs that they do not like.

The positive aspect are obvious. We would be much freer if we were no coerced by the government to pay taxes.