“Even the most committed capitalists often prefer their cooking, conversation and sex to take place on a voluntary basis.”

The Spectator notes  the fascinating economic research into the “irrational” way we can prefer truly free goods and services, over the same benefits for a trivial charge. Cheap is step-different from free. Altruism is powerful. Selfishness can not explain economic man.

This reminds me – I must find out when the unlimited deductibility of charitable donations takes effect. When I last checked there was still uncertainty about the definition of ‘charitable’.

I expect that law change to have a quiet but eventually enormous long term effect in rebuilding civil society in New Zealand. True private patronage will supplant the State, or at least offer alternatives, in serving people, in career opportunites, in motivation. It will reinvigorate and discipline the arts, education,  welfare and charity. We’ll see a re-emergence of debate and experimentation  suppressed for decades under reactionary union, bureacratic and other groups whose hands grip the levers of the State.

It is no wonder, in that light, that they’re fighting back. The Charities Commission is one tool. It is being obliged to patrol an unjustifiable disqualification of charities that engage in political advocacy. That is exactly where New Zealand could benefit most – a hot-house political/media caste should be challenged by advocacy outside the contol of those who decide how taxes are spent.