### p56 Mesoamerican governments distributed taxed food in times of famine > households undoubtedly benefited from community and central stores during periods of famine government officials met their public obligations by emptying stores to feed the hungry. > > community or group storage of surplus also served the local needs of residents, resembling a kind of community chest. In this regard, cofrad?as Were introduced by the Spanish shortly after the Conquest and were quickly adopted by the native populations throughout Mesoamerica. The cofrad?a was a religious institution designed to support the social and economic needs of the parish community. Indian cofrad?as quickly developed into institutions that were more akin to pre-Conquest community organization than the Spanish system - [[Domestic Storage Behavior in Mesoamerica#p56 Mesoamerican governments distributed taxed food in times of famine|View in Vault]] - [I] This seems pretty similar to the way that taxed foods were gathered into a surplus as part of the religious tithes in the Levant and then redistributed as charity as needed. This could be used as an #articleseed for comparing the role of government vs. religion in different societies, including whether charities should be government or religiously run. The whole thing about “I don’t like to give homeless people money because I would prefer a more efficient system in which my taxes go to helping them by leveraging economies of scale.”