This is charity, not Socialism. This is providing help at the whim of one person's desires or beliefs. Charity has its place but society should use its resources to offer help to everyone in need.

Edit: And just to be clear, when we talk about socialism, we are talking about democratic socialism. That doesn't mean there isn't free market commerce, it just means that the market is regulated. Even the U.S. regulates its free market.

Wouldn't this work better if it was on the dumpster?

Another poor soul saved from the orphan crushing machine. How heartwarming.

I don't want my tax money saving people from destitution. I want that guy to do it so I can read about it on social media.

If we could trust every last person to act on charity, and every person to accept charity only when they need it, socialism wouldn't be required.

But will this sign change when a small homeless camp sets up on their doorstep?

Supporting the public comes with its own unique set of problems. You need to do this kind of thing at scale, or it will fracture and fall apart.

Fundamental misunderstanding. Conservatives would actually call this a win for their side IMO. This is because conservatives believe charity > socialism. If I were to be, er, charitable toward conservatives, I would say it's because they distrust government but believe in human generosity. They often really do believe in charity though, at least the comparatively sane ones that I know; it's not something that they just say to deflect.

The problem with charity IMO is that it typically performs quite poorly. The average charity is 100x less effective than the best charities (Givewell), and IIRC this is essentially true regardless of what metric you use for "best." It's also fundamentally not a fair way to distribute wealth; it doesn't help people with different problems equally; and it doesn't necessarily come from different sources in relation to how much they can give. Most people who donate have a narrow moral circle -- they care about some strangers much more than other strangers, based on questionable things like race, proximity, or religion. (Some might object to me citing Effective Altruism here, fair enough, but if you're already coming from the perspective that charity is the best way to improve the lives of those less fortunate, then it's really hard to argue with the research EA has done.)

The way I see socialism is essentially scaled-up, fair, and mandatory charity.

But if we have socialism, how will the rich give the poor people the breadcrumbs to stroke their ego and appear like a benevolent monarch? Think of their feelings!

What’s with the Windows 95 style inset border and black border on this?

Why would the person that goes through the bins go to the front of the shop to look at a piece of paper on the glass. Surely you'd post this on the bin that night?

Feels like I could write a hand written receipt from oxfam, thanking me for the 8 figure donation, and put it on my tinder profile.

The love the idea of performative goodness which costs them less than a dollar one time which they can then milk endlessly for good vibes with their fellow man buuuuut they really don't want to come off $300 every month so that the young woman who works in the same establishment can have enough to feed her kids well. It costs a lot more it scales and nobody personally thanks them or sees them being a good person when they pay the IRS to fund this. If they pay the IRS that is.

It's a design flaw that many people get more satisfaction out of other people's charitable actions than their own.

My immediate reaction is that the owner probably took the picture himself trying to go viral and immediately took it down. Nothing gets solved in this country anymore unless there's a dollar to be made and looking like a good person is somehow more important than being a good person. Why would the person even read it on the front door? Why not discretely package some food and put it next to the dumpster with a note stuck to it? Nothing about this makes sense when you analyze it. The few real heroes of this country are unsung, the rest is just virtue signaling.

These people love the sense of broadcasting their "selfless giving", and totally not for attention and influence.

Always reminds me of the classic Brecht piece "Saint Joan of the Stockyards" whenever I see celebrations of "charity" like this.

Orphan crushing machine

There may well be much healthier stuff in their dumpster than peanut butter and jelly. Why not offer to make an arrangement with the person in question to let them take stuff that's about to expire? Or, like, separate food that's being marked out into its own bag and maybe even put it in a cooler or something?

There was a time in my life when I did a fair bit of this myself and I was mostly getting like prepared foods that had been marked out the same day I was getting them. Peanut butter and jelly would have been a downgrade from pulling a couple of days worth of meals with like meat and cheese and veggies and stuff rather than just sugar and nuts and bread.

Not to say that this isn't nice, but it may well be a less viable option on its own in the long term. I suppose they could always do both.