Professors don't "live on charity" any more than anyone else with a job does.
If you disagree, stop paying them and see how that works out for you.
If you disagree, stop paying them and see how that works out for you.
That's very much the definition of "live on charity."
Educators produce enormous externalities that their students capture and build their lives around. To turn around and say they "live on charity and lecture us on money" is the height of ingratitude.
Great comment.
I think OP's point was that those organizations don't necessarily have a good grasp of the reality those of us bound by market forces live under. That's something I've certainly seen from both universities and other ivory towers.
For the past many decades, I've donated to organizations like the FSF, mostly to allow people like Richard Stallman to be funded to do what they want. That gives those people great freedom to do the right thing, and it's well worth the money. That doesn't take away from the reality that those people are now in no position to evaluate the choices I make, without the luxury of that same sort of support.
Hence terms like 'ivory tower.' Yes, we should provide artists, scholars, and others with charity support, but yes, we should accept that distorts their worldview too.
About the charitable donations - you have a point there, but the fact these resources are given rather taken is a problem.