The organizers of these projects will explain that food should be free, that no one should ever have to go hungry. The decision- making process used by the organizers is nonheirarchical. They recieve no government or corporate grants. In many cities, they serve their meals as an act of civil disobedience, risking arrest.
Charities are a necessary part of any economic social system.
The scarcity imposed by the economy creates a situation in which some people are unable to meet their most basic needs through the normal channels. Even in nations with highly developed social welfare programs, there are those who fall through the cracks in the system. Charities take up the slack where the state's welfare programs can't or won't help. The beneficiaries of a charity are at the mercy of the organizers of the program and so are not free to act on their own terms in this relationship. This can be seen in the humiliating way in which one must recieve charity.