It's disingenuous to say you're working FOR the disadvantaged. They aren't directing your activity and they have no power in the matter.
Government actually responds to the desires of the disadvantaged so the difference is infinite.
Volunteer organizations only serve a very, very narrow sliver of the disadvantaged, and they usually don't work to eradicate the disadvantaged but rather to exploit them to perpetuate their institutions.
The customer of the volunteer organization is the donor or charitable person. They dictate the behaviour of the organization. The product is the disadvantaged person, who is used in sales pitches and so on to convince the customer to hand over their credit card information.
Just because the disadvantaged are used by private charities to extract donations from the wealthy doesn't mean that the volunteer organizations are working FOR the disadvantaged.
Simple fact of the matter is that working for the disadvantaged would include a lot more responsiveness, a lot more prevention, a lot more intelligence, a lot LESS volunteer work and a lot more professional work. (volunteer work is poverty tourism 99% of the time--the poor don't need people handing out soup at soup kitchens. They just need money to buy their own soup and a social system that gives them some opportunity to become self-sufficient.)
Government actually responds to the desires of the disadvantaged so the difference is infinite.
Volunteer organizations only serve a very, very narrow sliver of the disadvantaged, and they usually don't work to eradicate the disadvantaged but rather to exploit them to perpetuate their institutions.
The customer of the volunteer organization is the donor or charitable person. They dictate the behaviour of the organization. The product is the disadvantaged person, who is used in sales pitches and so on to convince the customer to hand over their credit card information.
Just because the disadvantaged are used by private charities to extract donations from the wealthy doesn't mean that the volunteer organizations are working FOR the disadvantaged.
Simple fact of the matter is that working for the disadvantaged would include a lot more responsiveness, a lot more prevention, a lot more intelligence, a lot LESS volunteer work and a lot more professional work. (volunteer work is poverty tourism 99% of the time--the poor don't need people handing out soup at soup kitchens. They just need money to buy their own soup and a social system that gives them some opportunity to become self-sufficient.)