Philanthropy can reduce inequality
- William Gumede
The act of giving by business, and wealthy and skilled individuals can make important contributions to solving our pressing problems.
This is in light of the failure of the state, continuing deep levels of poverty, unemployment and inequality.
Philanthropy could be divided into three basic forms: giving by companies, wealthy individuals and ordinary citizens. In many emerging democracies and markets such as South Africa, corporates and rich individuals, may sometimes have acquired their riches on the back of exploitation of the poor, through state capture and even corruption.
Philanthropy can lead to greater social solidarity between the well-off and the poor, trigger positive social change, and overall make citizens more resilient in the face of state collapse. The act of giving can be described as a form of active citizenship.
Funding from philanthropists improves public service delivery where the state fails. It can improve policy-making, provide new ideas to tackle complex problems and give the issues of the poor, marginalised and minorities greater prominence.
It can help reduce economic, social and political inequalities - across race, class and gender. But it can also reduce civic inequalities of voice, access and participation between the poor and the better-off.
It can potentially strengthen civil society - a strong civil society strengthens democracy, public service delivery and accountability of public and elected representatives.
Off course, philanthropy, especially big philanthropy - giving by large companies and very wealthy individuals - also potentially has its drawbacks. The unequal power, influence and money between the wealthy and the ordinary citizen could lead to the marginalisation of the ordinary citizen in civic life.
In fact, the disparities in wealth between the rich and the poor, especially in new democracies such as South Africa, could cause “civic inequality”, the inequality between the ability of the rich and the poor to get their voices heard, to participate in public life and access resources.
Such “civic” inequality comes on top of the already economic, social and race inequality between the wealthy and the poor. The wealthy can disproportionally influence society’s priorities. Wealthy donors can often side uncritically with corporate interests, which may be inimical to those of the poor.
As a case in point, big global philanthropists - who have more money in many cases than individual developing countries, now often determine the policies and priorities of African and other developing countries.
Such big global philanthropists in some cases support groups, forms of democracy and market economies which are palatable to Western governments and interest groups, but which are not necessarily useful to recipient countries.
Unlike governments, wealthy donors are often beholden to public, democratic institutions’ and civil society scrutiny.
This means that wealthy donors are often not adequately held accountable. It is often difficult for the public to surmise the funding motives of wealthy donors.
Many wealthy donors are often not responsive to the needs of the communities they purport to fund. Ironically, Peter and Jennifer Buffett, the son and daughter-in-law of the US entrepreneur Warren Buffett, and wealthy philanthropists in their own right - have warned that philanthropists like themselves may engage in “philanthropic colonialism”. This is the tendency of wealthy donors to think they know the needs - and solutions - of the communities they fund better than the recipients.
Neverthel