How should wealthy people react to such grave issues as racism, economic injustice, and climate change? Eminent intellectuals have long debated whether philanthropy provides acceptable or meaningful answers to complex problems.
In the words of 18th-century philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft, private giving is “the most specious system of servitude.” Wollstonecraft believed that humanitarian and philanthropic endeavors should be used to mitigate the negative impacts of unjust laws and political institutions rather than overthrow them.
Private giving “creates a multiplicity of faults,” the poet and playwright Oscar Wilde claimed a century later. According to Wilde, generosity degrades and demoralizes people by shielding them from seeing the realities of structural injustice.
According to civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr., Philanthropy is “commendable” but insufficient in the face of problems like war, racism, and poverty. King stated that “true compassion” is “seeing that an edifice that creates beggars needs restructuring.”
Avram Grant, as a philanthropist specializing in the ethics of philanthropy, sees these assertions as a continuation of a long line of criticisms of private giving. He views these criticisms as raising issues in society. Furthermore, he shares ideas to solve these problems with the people.
Attacking the Underlying Political Causes of Social Issues
However, those who object to palliative charity frequently demand more immediate means of structural change.
Significant changes must be made to the laws and regulations that create and govern those institutions to transform unfair institutions. All resources should be directed toward systemic and political reform because, in the words of University of Chicago philosopher Brian Leiter, “Human misery has systemic origins, which charity never addresses, but which political change can address.”
Will Kymlicka, a philosopher at Queen’s University, believes that political activism is a person’s primary responsibility when confronted with injustice to push for just institutions.
Emily Clough, a political scientist at Northeastern University, believes that privately funded initiatives to hold governments accountable are the most fantastic way to combat the underlying causes of poverty and inequality.
In other words, donors should spend less on giving those in need the necessary things and services. And even if doing so means forgoing the tax benefits associated with traditional charitable donations, they should invest far more in political campaigns, lobbying, legal actions, and policy advocacy.
Many Donations Have Additional Purposes.
This criticism raises some immediate objections. Indeed, generosity often responds to causes other than alleviating poverty and combating inequality. Instead, thousands of charity organizations work to increase access to artistic enrichment opportunities, protect cultural heritage, and complement research funding.
And unlike donations connected to alleviating famine or providing mosquito nets to reduce the prevalence of malaria, it’s generally harder to comprehend how charity with scientific, cultural, or artistic aims may act as a Band-Aid or become counterproductive.
The idea that philanthropic giving is purely palliative raises whether it holds equally when donors attempt to address the underlying causes of society’s most pressing issues.
That is a frequent objective of American philanthropy. Its leaders have long supported the idea that donations might help bring about structural change in various issues, from financial exclusion to human trafficking.
Being a Donor Who Upholds Democratic Principles
How can large donors balance their desire to right wrongs and the restraints on the power that democracy demands?
One possibility is for funders to support the objective of political change without taking control of the plan.
They can assist in nonpartisan community organizing, which enables dispersed people to identify and work together on common problems. Community organizing was the first step in solving systemic issues, such as preserving civil rights and workers’ rights and prohibiting redlining.
The selection of advocacy campaigns that balance out vital special interests that have already distorted the discourse is a second possibility.
To oppose the lobbying efforts of cigarette businesses, donations supporting advocacy that results in limitations on tobacco marketing, for instance, may be acceptable. Similar to how environmental advocacy contributions could lessen fossil fuel firms’ impact on climate change legislation.
A Cautionary Tale on Educational Reform
The challenge is that the answer risks creating new forms of injustice. Encouraging donors to spend more money on efforts to modify laws and policies in an environment of great economic inequality runs the risk of escalating political inequality and harming democracy.
Political community members would inevitably dispute the rationale for and methods of reforming their institutions. The right to equal opportunity to participate in political decision-making is a fundamental requirement of democracy. Being committed to treating one another as free and equal members of society contradicts allowing advantages in economic or social status to be swapped for greater political power.
This idea is illustrated by the K–12 education reform movement in the United States, which is supported by annual philanthropic donations totaling billions of dollars.
A common argument against donor-led efforts to transform education is that they have lofty goals but little understanding of what works in classrooms. The United States continues to fall far short of most of its peer nations’ global education standards even after decades of this philanthropic tendency.
According to Avram Grant, significant contributors should take note of this initiative and realize that they shouldn’t sidestep or stifle public discourse just because they have the resources to address a pressing social issue. Even if such initiatives produce the desired results, they undermine democracy and mistreat residents.
Conclusion
The local communities provided the funding and commitment to include the schools in their own public school district. Concerns regarding undue donor influence were reduced due to this fundraising strategy.
These are not the only possibilities. And everyone has their own restrictions. But in my opinion, paying more attention to the struggle between justice and democracy in charitable giving may lead to discovering new, more effective solutions.
