People often do not have enough material resources at their disposal, although no one in the abundance and surplus society would have to suffer from hunger and food poverty (neither locally nor globally). Still existing inequities in distribution and resulting inequities in participation are increasingly hidden by passing on the abundance or surplus to people in need of help through food banks or clothing stores, which since their founding in the early 2000s have steadily increased in number of offers and also in the number of buyers. These services are critically discussed as a “new economy of compassion”: While the dismantling of the welfare state and the introduction of a low-wage sector have concealed increasing poverty and need, volunteers have now taken over tasks for which the welfare state would be responsible.