Almsgiving tends to perpetuate poverty; aid does away with it once and for all. Almsgiving leaves a man just where he was before. Aid restores him to society as an individual worthy of all respect and not as a man with a grievance. Almsgiving is the generosity of the rich; social aid levels up social inequalities. Charity separates the rich from the poor; aid raises the needy and sets him on the same level with the rich.
ATTRIBUTION:
Eva Perón (1919–1952), Argentinian government official, politician. Address, December 5, 1949, to the American Congress of Industrial Medicine. “My Labour in the Field of Social Aid.”
