Are Big Philanthropists the Cause More than the Cure?

The Economist has expertly produced a provocative 30 minute documentary exploring effective altruism and the growth of big foundations giving more to charities but solving fewer problems, all the while — according to some of those interviewed — subsidized by poor people through the tax code.  You can watch it below.  Meanwhile, here are some real fighting words from the transcript:

Journalist Anand Giridharidas spent 3 years exploring the motivations of America’s wealthy philanthropists.  He has concluded that some of their business practices create the very social problems their philanthropy tries to address.  “Well what I see is a room full of people who think they are helping but are working at much greater scale to maintain and entrench a system that frankly dooms the people that they are helping.  Real altruism would actually be doing less harm, not running working people into the ground through the pressure they put on the companies they take stakes in.”

In the past 30 years the number of foundations in America has almost tripled.  Since 1978 the proportion of overall giving that’s come from those foundations has also tripled.  But the US Treasury estimates philanthropy will cost it 740 billion dollars in lost tax revenue over the next decade.  Anand claims this giving by wealthy Americans is more about tax breaks than charity.  “Poor people, people who make 20,000 dollars a year are paying higher taxes than they otherwise would to subsidise about 50 billion dollars in tax breaks every year that we give people for donating money.  You are injecting harm into the society, you are making more money and then you are going to the Robin Hood gala to donate 1% of what you have stolen from the common good to a fraction of the people whose interest you have harmed and you feel so proud of yourself.  It’s an arsonist convention in which everybody is under the mistaken impression that they are firefighters.”

darryll jones