This essay places service-learning within the liberal arts tradition of empowering others to help themselves. Such a contextualization departs from visions of the student as consumer or customer and education as a means to gain economic advantage in a competitive market. Attention then turns to how even well-intentioned service-learning projects might be co-opted in ways that foster community dependence on the services offered. Recommendations are included for a version of service-learning that navigates between political indoctrination and value-free objectivity. (Contains 54 references.) (Author/RS)