In Praise of Private Philanthropy
With the recent news that Bill Gates will give up stewardship of Microsoft in the next two years to concentrate on his foundation work. And, the news that the second-richest man in the world will give his fortune to the richest man in the world, it is important to recall that things actually get done absent government involvement.
As Samuel Pepys once observed, "pretty to see what money will do."
The Toronto Star reminds us that:
"In America, with its tradition of diminished reliance on government, private largesse accounts for the existence of the Johns Hopkins Hospital; the University of Chicago, Stanford University, New York University, Duke University, Wake Forest University and Vanderbilt University, among others; and even the Statue of Liberty. (France provided the statue, but it lay in dismantled pieces for a decade until New York tabloid publisher Joseph Pulitzer, who also founded America's leading school of journalism at Columbia University and the journalism prizes named for him, kicked off a "children's drive" of penny donations with an outsized donation of his own to build the massive podium on which the massive statue now rests.)
"The Chandler family [really the Otis family] of the Los Angeles Times, depicted harshly but accurately in Chinatown, created a viable economy in Southern California — now one of the largest economies in the world — by redirecting distant rivers to the fresh-water-starved region. Carnegie combated illiteracy by building about 1,100 libraries worldwide, some half-dozen of which are still in use by the Toronto Library System. Civic leaders in Minneapolis-St. Paul in the 1970s banded together — Target Corp., 3M Co., General Mills Inc. among them — to combat the growing scourge of slum neighbourhoods. John Hancock Financial Services Inc., before its recent acquisition by Toronto's Manulife Financial Corp., saved a then doomed Boston Marathon."
Given the choice of funds in the hands of the individuals who earned it or the federal government, it is an easy decision.
Comments (7)
David C
Well, not to look a gift horse in the mouth or to negate the point of private charity, but I do not trust the sincerity of Gates or Buffet. Both of them seem to understand the wealth and prosperity that free markets generate, but both seem to despise freedom in it's own rite. Gates with copyrights, and Buffet with his strong support for all sorts of taxes and financial market regulations. Also, if anybody, these people should understand and despize the Fed, but they don't even seem to care. Both also give generously to liberal democratic institutions which have a reputation for pushing statisim. In addition, it seems insulting to give financially to poor people, whom if were given liberty are more than capable of helping themselves. In fact, IMHO if you give charity to the needy, but don't give liberty - then it is almost pre-destined to lead to contention and violence. (then again, a consipracy theorist might say that's the plan - after all, Buffet did recently invest several billion dollars in an Isreali machinist/drill bit company, a perfect Howard Huges play that would profit handsomly from global warfare)
Published: June 26, 2006 1:07 AM
Artisan
Yes, it might well be that Gates and Buffet make an argument in favor of libertarian thinking against their own will… it doesn’t change my view on those CEOs too much either. Of course it is still quite impressing though. Anyway, it’s their money and there’s probably worse ways to spend it. Note that it’s all their wives’ idea too. Perhaps they are just giving the money to calm down the women who knowingly repeat the whole time “how can you continuously abuse all these poor people with your s… products?�.
I’ll still probably switch to Linux one day, and I always liked Quantum better than Berkshire, despite the essential need for insurance companies in a libertarian world, especially giving the fact that Soros (a Hayek student) supposedly helped financing a real peaceful freedom revolution in Hungary… and then in Germany.
Published: June 26, 2006 2:16 AM
Billy Beck
A reading:
"Fords, Rockefellers, Morgans, Mellons, and Vanderbilts to a man are given to public good works and private lives of the most revolting probity. Among the inheritors of great names and great fortunes in America it is difficult if not impossible to find a living man who has given a dinner party at which nude chorus girls leaped from the innards of a lamb potpie."
(Lucius Beebe, "The Big Spenders", 1966)
I'm with Beebe. This is disgusting.
Published: June 26, 2006 7:27 AM
Walt D.
How interesting. I seem to recall that Warren Buffett was a staunch believer in the virtues of the inheritance tax. Cleary he believes that it is OK for the Federal Government to steal and waste other people's meager accumulations of wealth, while he prefers to donate his own fortune to a private charitable foundation!
Published: June 26, 2006 5:48 PM
Robert Lynn
I just watched the Warren Buffet news conference on Fox TV. It reeked of altruism and good intentions but seemed to turn away from the very things that made Buffet and Gates so successful. In the end it just seemed like another statist do-gooder exercise in assuaging guilt except that Warren, Belinda, and Bill have decided to preempt the government and take over central planning themselves. There was much talk of disease and poverty but it seems that their understanding of the problem is that poor people don't have enough money and therefore they are taking it unto themselves to redistribute money. Having recently read Hernando de Soto's "The Mystery of Capital" it seems to me that their emphasis on disease and poverty while omitting any mention of property rights betrays ignorance of the issues of poverty and indeed of the conditions that allowed them to accumulate capital. Therefore I expect no meaningful success in this psuedo-government program.
Also of interest in this respect is the article by Professeur Walter E. Williams, "'Helping Africa' to death".
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=50817
Published: June 28, 2006 2:23 AM
John
Oh my ! What a load of intellectual nonsense.
Buffet and Gates have done something wonderful
and all you can do it moan and see some sort
of conspiracy.
The green eyed demon has poisoned your brain !
Good Day !
Published: June 29, 2006 4:58 AM
Robert M.
Your comments about Bill Gates are interesting. But there is no need to be billionnaire to help poor countries. I would like to mention here a new website of a non-profit NGO called Donationpixel.
Their goal is to collect money for different humanitarian projects around the world.
Their website offers the visibility of the donor - this could be interesting for many companies - the choice of the project and the country, and also the visibility of the work done in the field. They also give answers to different questions, like "Where goes my money?" or "what do they do with it?".
It seems to be an interesting new approach to encourage donations for vulnerables in poor countries. The URL is
http://www.donationpixel.org/
Maybe a new way to attract more donation.
Thanks for your attention.
Robert
Published: November 17, 2006 8:33 AM