Oh, Billionaires
Look at their charitable donations on a case-by-case basis
A while back, there were a bunch of articles criticizing billionaire philanthropy (A B C D E F G). These pieces typically targeted Effective Altruism-style philanthropy. The main argument made in these pieces is that billionaire individuals shouldn’t have that much power, and their donations might undermine democratic processes.
Photo by me. My parents, who grew up in public housing projects in New York City, saved their pennies as well as some other coins.
I think that there are some reasonable points made in these arguments. I also think that Scott Alexander and Richard Yetter Chappell (see this substack post) do a nice job responding to them.
It appears to me that many billionaires like Musk, Bezos, Andreessen, as well as many others with lower public profiles, are downright horrible people. (I conjecture, boldly, that there is a selection effect in the kind of person who becomes a billionaire.) I also think that the highest marginal tax rate should be much higher, so I’m not in favor of the system that allows for mega-billionaires in the first place.
Given that billionaires do exist, I think that we should make judgments about their donations on a case-by-case basis. There is no good blanket argument against billionaire philanthropy, although there are some concerns raised by the pieces cited above that are worth keeping in mind.
I am thinking about this today because of news last week that MacKenzie Scott, the billionaire ex-wife of Jeff Bezos, has recently given more donations to causes promoting social justice, including a large donation last week, to bring the total amount she has given away to $19 billion. As a billionaire, however, the anti-billionaire argument also applies to her. Why aren’t those same people up in arms?
Alas, I can’t say that no one is up in arms about MacKenzie Scott. Here is Elon Musk himself (!) criticizing Scott for similar reasons: her donations are undemocratically changing the world. I wonder: What do advocates of the anti-billionaire philanthropy argument think about Scott’s donations? Would they like to stand with Musk as a like-minded thinker?
Lots of EA-aligned people have done the world a lot of good. Perhaps even more good than MacKenzie Scott has done with her donations. Or maybe not. Let’s try to look at the details of specific EA projects as well as large philanthropic donations, rather than make a general condemnation of it.