‘Philanthropy’ Review: Thanks to the Givers

Criticizing the wealthy for do-goodism is an old sport. Yet who but they are willing to put money behind activities that lack public support?

By Leslie Lenkowsky

The Wall Street Journal 

Nov. 24, 2020  5:58 pm ET

Image from article, which also contains an image of Melinda and Bill Gates

By many measures, the past three decades have amounted to a golden age of philanthropy, rivaling the early 20th century, when John D. Rockefeller and other industrialists began to dedicate their wealth to helping the public. Endowments and charitable foundations have mushroomed, along with new ways of giving—e.g., through businesses and investment funds. More than 200 of the world’s richest people have signed a pledge, developed by Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett, to give most of their wealth to charity. Even more impressive is the vast amount of money donated to charities by the non-wealthy, accounting for the bulk of philanthropy each year in the U.S. and elsewhere.

In “Philanthropy: From Aristotle to Zuckerberg,” a chronicle every bit as encyclopedic as the title suggests, Paul Vallely tries to take stock of this golden age. A British writer and humanitarian activist whose previous work includes a biography of Pope Francis, Mr. Vallely examines the religious roots of philanthropy and, for his analysis of the current scene, draws on examples from Britain as well as the United States. He includes interviews with donors, charity leaders and celebrities (such as Bob Geldof, the musician behind the “Live Aid” campaign to address African famine), allowing them to discuss their efforts and the challenges they have faced.

In the end, though, Mr. Vallely is less than impressed by our golden age. He argues that today’s philanthropy aims more at advancing the “pet projects” of givers than addressing the needs of the rest of society. He wishes instead for what he calls “Reciprocal Philanthropy,” or “philanthropy with a human face,” in which donors do more to listen to, and respect, those they seek to help, thereby building social bonds between givers and receivers.

Criticizing the do-goodism of the wealthy is an old sport, and Mr. Vallely relies heavily on the work of others who have done so, including fellow journalists Anand Giridharadas and Jane Mayer. But he is less than charitable toward philanthropy’s accomplishments and, not least, its importance in underwriting activities that may have limited public appeal. Those pet projects, after all—say, the Gates Foundation’s efforts to improve teacher performance—have value even if others believe the money could be better spent elsewhere.  

Mr. Vallely’s ideal is the giving practiced by early Christians. Unlike the Greeks and Romans, whose preferred philanthropic projects involved civic improvements, Christianity (along with Judaism and Islam in different ways) added a moral dimension: Helping the needy and treating them as kindred spirits would allow the wealthy to fulfill their faith’s dictates for virtuous living. Parables, such as the Good Samaritan, and commentaries, such as the “ladder of giving” developed by the medieval Jewish scholar Maimonides, emphasized the responsibility to help strangers and stressed the value of anonymous donations. While more than a few of the well-to-do strayed from this purpose, the idea that giving was to bind the fortunate and unfortunate in a spiritual community persisted well past the Protestant Reformation. 

Mr. Vallely points to a number of events that shifted philanthropy away from this spiritual ideal and toward a focus on remedying social and economic ills, an approach that eventually involved the state. In Britain, the Black Death in the 14th century gave rise to a dislocated and sometimes threatening laboring class; the early stages of industrialization resulted in crowded cities and the hazards of business cycles; and the confiscation of church lands turned government into the guardian of the poor. “A desire for social control,” writes Mr. Vallely, “brought politics as well as philanthropy into the business of charity.” Even begging, once seen as nearly a saintly calling, came to require licensing.

Without a religious component, of course, philanthropy could still be given a moral cast. It could be seen as a way of creating a better society, as the British manufacturer Robert Owen and the American steel magnate Andrew Carnegie argued. To the British chocolatiers George Cadbury and Joseph Rowntree, a philanthropic spirit lay behind their projects to build model villages for their employees. In both Britain and the U.S., devotees of Charity Organization Societies and the settlement-house movement defended their giving as an effort to reclaim lives lost to drink, laziness or other vices. To utilitarians, from Jeremy Bentham to Peter Singer, philanthropy affords a more “effective” way of expressing the old virtue of altruism, because it can rest on seemingly scientific calculations of benefits and costs.

Mr. Vallely does a thorough job of tracing these secular claims to the outlook of today’s “philanthrocapitalists,” such as Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. He also repeats some well-known criticisms of them: They seek to cleanse fortunes obtained in dubious ways; they are paternalistic; they are coercive; they have put their money into dubious schemes. While he finds much wrong with conservative donors, he doesn’t spare the liberal ones. To Mr. Vallely, the Koch brothers, in their supposed use of philanthropy for political goals, have more in common with George Soros than mere ideological differences might suggest.

Mr. Vallely acknowledges that today’s philanthropists have had notable successes, such as the Gates Foundation’s campaign against polio. But ultimately he wishes that philanthropists would embrace an approach that echoes the older, religious one. “They must listen more carefully,” he writes, and “be more open and accountable in their donations.”

In other words, they should behave more like a conscientious public official. Worried about their legitimacy in an increasingly populist world, many grant makers might agree. But one can reasonably wonder if philanthropists who try to listen and be accountable to society—or try to build solidarity with the needy—would ever be willing to put their money behind activities that lack popular support, as they now do. Mr. Vallely would have donors think more like politicians. But if they did, who would need philanthropy?

Mr. Lenkowsky is professor emeritus of public affairs and philanthropic studies at Indiana University.

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Appeared in the November 25, 2020, print edition as 'Thanks To the Givers.'