We live in an age of billionaires. The Givers shows that many moneyed people are giving back. Bill and Melinda Gates operate the richest foundation in the world. They’re focused on improving health all over the world but especially in Africa. Warren Buffett is contributing billions to the Gates Foundation (why reinvent the wheel). On the other hand, the Koch Brothers distribute their billions to conservative causes. As income inequality increases, many institutions will be beholden to rich donors to fund their activities. Our tax system favors the wealthy and what they do with their money will affect all of us. GRADE: B+
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Prologue: The Great Power Shift
Chapter 1: The Coming of Big Philanthropy
Chapter 2: Who Are These People?
Chapter 3: Grandmasters
Chapter 4: Super-Citizens
Chapter 5: Disrupters
Chapter 6: Leverage Points
Chapter 7: Advocates
Chapter 8: Networkers
Chapter 9: Heirs to Influence
Chapter 10: The New Medicis
Chapter 11: Agents of Wealth
Epilogue: Balancing Act
Acknowledgments
Notes
A Note About the Author
It is all so worrisome. A good government will distribute taxes more evenhandedly. Even folks like the Gates get to play bountiful gods with their money. Better to have it come from an entity other than benefactors. This sounds too much like the middleages.
Patti, you’re right about the return of the Middle Ages model of rich patrons. It’s the result of growing inequality.
I’m guessing, but I feel the donations made by the Koch bros. aren’t really charity but political, to serve the conservative/right wing politics. When I flew out of Wichita KS recently, the way to the gates had a huge poster of the Koch bros company, but just their name.
It seems many many sports figures and actors have their own foundations, though I’ve never heard of the Kardassians donating $ anywhere
Maggie, the Koch Brothers have donated millions to cancer research. But they have given millions to conservative political causes, too.
Ifeel like Patti – a return to these”Good Old Times” worries me too. here in Hungary we have a saying:
Only the poor and the stupid pay taxes …
And in Europe generally the first tax that comes to mind is not income tax but VAT (Value Added Tax) which you pay on practically everything!
In Germany it’s 19%, but only 7% on essentials like food and books (!) – in Hungary it’s 27% on almost evrything!
And in the Middle Ages you just paid the Tenth – but of course if you were unlucky you paid a Tenth to your local ruler, a Tenth to your king and a Tenth to the reigning Church.
PS:
I realised that I had “arrived” in Hungary and was accepted as a local when people who did me a service (whether electrician or carpenter, the local garage or theneighbour who sold us vegetables …) started to ask after I asked for the price:
Do you need a bill/receipt?
Not just the Middle Ages, but the so-called Gilded Age in post-Civil War America comes to mind. And as Deb often quotes; “Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.”
Not really a happy picture but the book sounds interesting at least!