"Charity Doesn't Solve Anything"

As you know, Bill and Warren have set out on an excellent adventure.

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have been traveling around America and the world trying to persuade their fellow billionaires to join them in pledging half of their assets to charity.

Now you know that Bill and Warren are very generous people. They will not merely be remembered as obscenely rich, but as paragons, as paladins, as champions of progressive causes, as men of unimpeachable moral standing.

If we are not feeling quite so charitable ourselves, we would note that we are witnessing the spectacle of two men who are so rich that they can burn money. It does not really matter how much they burn.

After all Bill himself lives in the Pacific Northwest. Maybe he is just reviving the old Native American custom of potlatch.

Half of an infinite amount of money is still an infinite amount of money. Bill and Warren can burn half of it and still, if they wish, ensure that their descendants will always be richer than everyone else.

If they have decided not to make their children and grandchildren absurdly rich, because they understand that living off of trust funds does not promote human initiative, self-reliance and self-respect, then why would they want the same rules to apply to non-family members?

For all I know, Bill and Warren are just avoiding taxes. They do not trust the government, and want to have a say in how their money is spent.

Ironically, both Bill and Warren tend to favor high taxes. When you are a billionaire you do not effectively pay taxes, so no matter what your tax rate your lifestyle does not suffer.

The best irony here is that while Bill and Warren are off on their grand adventure, Bill, Sr. father of the Microsoft billionaire, is promoting an initiative in Washington State to raise state taxes on wealthy people.

Is this part of the Gates philanthropy business? To make sure that others give more money to the government, the better to make up for the money that the Gates family is sheltering from taxation.

Unfortunately, it is also public policy. As Arthur Laffer pointed out, state income taxes tend to stifle economic growth. Maybe, having gobs of money blinds you to reality. Link here.

All things considered Bill and Warren’s excellent adventure looks like a self- promotional junket by people who have too much time and money on their hands.

Yesterday, the world’s richest man, Carlos Slim, answered Bill and Warren's initiative. Slim responded: “Charity never solved anything.” Link here.

Slim continued: "'The only way to fight poverty is with employment,' he said. 'Trillions of dollars have been given to charity in the last 50 years, and they don’t solve anything.'"

Charities do create employment, mostly for administrators and for do-gooders. But they do not create the kind of economic activity that sustains a prosperous society, and allows people to arrive at a point where they do not need charity.

The point is very obvious. It has been repeated over and over again. Apparently it has made no impression on Bill and Warren. As the Journal reports, Slim’s: "… point seems to be that society would benefit more if the wealthy channeled their creative energies and talents toward building job-creating businesses rather than doling out cash."

Here’s an idea. What if Bill and Warren dedicated ten percent of their fortune to providing seed money for new businesses in poorer American neighborhoods. What if they set up cooperatives that would train and help prospective entrepreneurs run these new businesses?

Human societies have always had charities. After all, religions have been on the front lines of charity as long as they have existed.  Christian love is called agape in Greek, caritas in Latin, and charity in English.

When the New Testament says that you should love your neighbor as yourself, it uses the word: agape.

But how much of the money that Bill and Warren and their friends are going to be funneling into charity is going to be given to religious organizations? How much of it do you think will go to Catholic charities or Hadassah or the United Methodist Committee on Relief?

Don’t hold your breath.

Bill Gates wants to cure malaria. It is certainly a worthy goal. Of course, you would think that given the prevalence of malaria, pharmaceutical companies have plenty of incentive to find a cure.

I will guarantee, without even looking it up, that the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is not involved with research that would produce new pesticides that could kill the mosquitoes that transmit malaria. Progressive values would preclude such funding.

Carlos Slim was pointing to the simple fact that if you send boatloads of food to feed the world’s hungry, you are going to feel very good about yourself, but you are also going to destroy local agriculture.

No one can compete with “free.”

Gratifying your philanthropic urges can easily create a cycle of dependence, one that saps initiative, self-respect, and demeans individuals.

Keep in mind, no matter who begins these foundations, and no matter whose name is on the door, ultimately they will be run by people who are in the business of philanthropy, and that means, people who have made it their life’s work.

These people are not champions of the free market; they are not especially interested in building businesses. They are interested in assuaging guilt, their own or someone else’s, by giving away money.

These charities will be promoting liberal and progressive causes; they will become advocacy organizations. They will not be promoting capitalism.

It is a good thing to fund education. It makes you feel good to fund education. Except that the problem with education has very little to do with money.

Education is a system that has been run by liberals and progressives, with precious little interference from moderates and conservatives. More and more it has devoted itself to inculcating the values associated with political correctness and self-esteemism, rather than teaching children.

All the world’s money is not going to change that.

It’s one thing to give money to the poor and the indigent. Religions have always done as much. It’s quite another to create a special class of people who can promote their own ideology under cover of philanthropy.

And who are not answerable to market forces or even to God.