The Charitable-Industrial Complex

Here are the final paragraphs in an interesting and perceptive NYT Op-Ed by Peter Buffett.  He comes up with an interesting phrase: "Philanthropic Colonialism"

The Charitable-Industrial Complex - NYTimes.com.

What we have is a crisis of imagination. Albert Einstein said that you cannot solve a problem with the same mind-set that created it. Foundation dollars should be the best “risk capital” out there. 

There are people working hard at showing examples of other ways to live in a functioning society that truly creates greater prosperity for all (and I don’t mean more people getting to have more stuff).  

Money should be spent trying out concepts that shatter current structures and systems that have turned much of the world into one vast market. Is progress really Wi-Fi on every street corner? No. It’s when no 13-year-old girl on the planet gets sold for sex. But as long as most folks are patting themselves on the back for charitable acts, we’ve got a perpetual poverty machine. 

It’s an old story; we really need a new one.

But perhaps Buffett's most important observation is this one:

"Inside any important philanthropy meeting, you witness heads of state meeting with investment managers and corporate leaders. All are searching for answers with their right hand to problems that others in the room have created with their left." 

To which I can only insert ... "and are benefiting from."

He also points out,

As more lives and communities are destroyed by the system that creates vast amounts of wealth for the few, the more heroic it sounds to “give back.” It’s what I would call “conscience laundering” — feeling better about accumulating more than any one person could possibly need to live on by sprinkling a little around as an act of charity.

But this just keeps the existing structure of inequality in place. The rich sleep better at night, while others get just enough to keep the pot from boiling over. Nearly every time someone feels better by doing good, on the other side of the world (or street), someone else is further locked into a system that will not allow the true flourishing of his or her nature or the opportunity to live a joyful and fulfilled life.

I hope Mr. Buffett will take the time to read Henry George's "Progress and Poverty."   He might be better able to identify the particular structures that create and maintain poverty and the concentrations of wealth, income and power.  And, based on that last sentence, I think Buffett would appreciate the final section of P&P.  (Bob Drake's 2006 abridgment is a fine starting place, but the unabridged is a pleasure of its own.)