UKC

and if not, why not?

I do on a fairly regular basis, I have a friend who is trapped in long term unemployment and understand the impossibility of living on the dole, but resent being part of a society where the poor have to rely on charity to live.

Yes, but reluctantly - always thinking isn't this a stupid situation society is in.

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No, I guess I'm just not alteristic enough. I'd prefer to be forced to be alteristic via taxation.

I see the country's slip towards a system of charitable giving rather than redistribution of wealth through taxation as reggresive.  That said, I can see that in the future, tax will be harder to collect from robots employed by big bussiness.

Frankly, I'm not sure how the future works at all... Robots making stuff and doing things for unemployed people with no money to pay for the goods and services? How does that work? How does big business make a profit out of that?

Fair enough.

I imagine most are like you, it takes a certain amount of effort to remember to take the effort when you're doing your shopping. I just think of people who end up with no food in the house, £1.34 in their pocket and nothing coming in until next Tuesday when they'll have the electricity bill to pay.

For the future, tea up on the universal wage. That combined with a higher rate of corporation tax may answer the question you pose.

I do weekly. Call me weird, but I quite like thinking of what to contribute each week. Some weeks I buy “healthy” staples, other weeks I give “treats”.

I agree, it’s a sad state of affairs that people have to rely on food banks. 

Sounds logical. Not sure we're currently heading in the right direction though. I'm thinking more along the lines of an enlarged underclass living on a black economy of resources stolen from a tiny elite but then again I always was overly optimistic. We’ll probably just be culled.

One could say that taxing people to give money to the poor is just as much "charity" as people giving it themselves.   It's still money from other people. 

Does it make it better if people are forced to give the money (through taxation) rather than choosing to themselves? 

It says that as a society we look after those who have fallen on hard times.

It's the difference between society and individuals.

Do you think we should abolish the charity of an old age pension?

Yes. One spreads the burden further and is less haphazard in supply.