Is philanthropy an unalloyed good? Or does philanthropy have its downsides too?

如果你想知道个人自愿为公益慈善事业捐款有什么不对，那么让我把我的批评范围缩小到像比尔·盖茨或约翰·d·洛克菲勒这样的超级有钱的肥猫，他们建立了这些价值数十亿美元的巨大基金会。

It’s not that I think the world would be a better place if these billionaires simply blew all their money on frivolous luxuries. My concern is that these foundations set up billionaires to decide exactly what counts as the public good. And who are they to make such decisions? Making billions of dollars does not make you an expert on the needs of society.

当然，在我们的资本主义社会，金钱等于权力。当你有很多钱的时候，你可以影响普通人无法影响的各种事情。不管我们喜欢与否，这似乎确实是世界运行的方式。因此，富人对什么是公共利益有更大的发言权，而那些资助基金会或指导倡议的人可以以你我不能的方式塑造公共政策。

我不想在这里讨论资本主义的问题，以及它造成的巨大的经济不平等是造成这种权力不对称的原因。但问题是，这些权力不对称从根本上讲是不民主的。在决定整个社会的最大需求是什么方面，它们给了富人太多的影响力，也让我们其他人保持沉默。如果我们生活在一个真正的民主国家，那么公共利益当然应该由人民来决定。

But, given that we do live in a capitalist society with vast inequality, what is the alternative? Isn’t it better that the super rich donate some of their wealth rather than spend it all selfishly on themselves and their families? Other than overthrowing the capitalist system, are there any other possibilities?

One obvious candidate is to impose a much greater tax on the ultra wealthy. If we actually taxed the 1% more, we could use their wealth to do lots of good in the world, without them dictating what counts as the public good. Wouldn’t this be more democratic?

Sadly, that does not seem like a completely satisfactory answer. For a start, it’s not as if we, the people, have much power in deciding how our taxes are spent. How much of these taxes on the ultra wealthy would actually be spent on the public good and not on, say, funding more wars? If we had confidence that giving the government more money was a good way to serve the good, then more of us would choose to do that rather than donating to our favorite charities.

其次，政府经常陷入官僚主义的泥潭，它可能会非常缓慢地适应迅速变化的社会格局。这些基金会没有那么多约束，因此可以更容易地改变它们的优先事项。

Third, it’s not clear that governments even have the will to tackle these big social problems. Or if they do, their efforts are obstructed at every turn by ideologues who think that if the market doesn’t provide social goods, government has no business doing so either.

So what is the answer?

如果没有亿万富翁阶层资助的慈善组织，世界会变得更好吗?还是我们需要像盖茨基金会和克林顿全球倡议这样的组织来解决长期的社会问题?

Should we welcome the input of successful entrepreneurs, both in terms of their money and their innovative ideas? Or will we just end up with the equivalent of an app to “solve” homelessness?