The Case Against Philanthropy

Human dignity should never be conditional to the generosity of billionaires

Photo: Mandel Ngan/Getty Images

The wealth class would like us all to think that their charitable donations act as a counterbalance to inequality in ways that are fair and just.

Jeff Bezos became the latest to play into this mantra last week, when he donated $98.5 million to help combat homelessness. The total amounted to just a fraction of a fraction of both Bezos’ total wealth and annual income — wealth and income which he earned by working laborers to death and destroying market competition. He donated the sum to his own morally dubious charity, which heavily emphasizes charter schooling, bootstrapping, and myriad other policies that are as ineffective as they are ideologically charged.

Predictably, conservatives fired back at critics on Twitter, accusing leftists of “never being satisfied.” In part, this comes from a fundamental (perhaps intentional) misunderstanding of leftism by the right — many conservatives have told me they believe leftists want a world where everyone chooses to be charitable. The reality is we want a world without charity.

The core of the problem is power. Conservatives like philanthropy because it keeps power in the hands of the powerful. But we should want a world where nobody’s human dignity and inherent value is made conditional to the generosity of billionaires. Leftists should stand against philanthropy — not because helping people is wrong, but because maintaining permanent classes of “philanthropists” and the “less fortunate” does nothing more than guarantee the persistence of poverty and a moral ambiguity around men who steal from billions, feed hundreds, and claim moral superiority because of it.