It is possible (even likely) that I've misunderstood people who were just being hyperbolic and didn't mean to be taken literally, but my impression was that some were saying that literally no charity organizations should be necessary? I (somewhat..) understand the "but then the wealthy are determining what gets done" thing, as a reason to not rely too much on it, but it seems clear to me that there are also major inefficiencies in having to go through a consensus process of government democracy, rather than people simply acting in smaller groups, independent of a larger consensus, to further charitable causes. It seems clear that there are cases where charities work better than govt programs alone, and it is a clear error to think that all charities would be better handled as a govt service, even if some would be better handled by one.

Hmm, if the government were to run a quadratic funding of charities thing, with only rather limited requirements for eligibility, perhaps that would somewhat alleviate the "undemocratic" complaint? (It would have to make it illegal to pay someone else to participate in your stead though.)