Brave Peter Buffett Attacks the Charitable Industrial Complex

Peter Buffett on Philanthropic Colonialism and Conscience Laundering by the Wealthy.

Peter Buffett, son of Warren Buffett the third richest man in the World, raises major issues about charities  which, as he notes, is "an old story."


He writes, in The New York Times, see link below,  "Inside any important philanthropy meeting.... heads of state meeting with investment managers and corporate leaders .. are searching for answers with their right hand to problems that others in the room have created with their left... (While) inequality is continually rising..... (B)etween 2001 and 2011, the number of nonprofits increased 25 percent. Their growth rate now exceeds that of both the business and government sectors. It’s a massive business, with approximately $316 billion given away in 2012 in the United States alone and more than 9.4 million employed."

He adds, "As more lives and communities are destroyed by the system that creates vast amounts of wealth for the few..... (“conscience laundering” involves feeling) better about accumulating more than any one person could possibly need to live on by sprinkling a little around as an act of charity. ....as long as most folks are patting themselves on the back for charitable acts, we’ve got a perpetual poverty machine."


Peter Buffet says charitable intervention cannot solve the issues of providing clean water, access to health products and free markets, better education and safer living conditions. "It can only kick the can down the road."

He implies that billions of dollars of charitable giving is thus being wasted, including by his dad Warren Buffett as well as Bill Gates, head of the Gates foundation which handles the bulk of Warren Buffett's philanthropic giving. Also in criticizing market based methods of measuring charitable impact, like return on investment, is Peter Buffett's attacking the Gates foundation, which uses similar measures?

So what then is the role of charities like the one Peter Buffett heads? He has no answers but writes, "It’s time for a new operating system.... something built from the ground up. New code." This lack of solutions is likely to be the focus of counter attacks on him by the charitable food chain, arguing  that "New code" sounds naive while the charities are at least tackling specific problems however imperfectly.  

Best wishes to Peter Buffett for bravely pointing out the conscience laundering factories. Wonder if the impact of his arguments will be more than cocktail chatter at upcoming fund raising galas, which are the core of social life for many involved in the charitable industrial complex.

His sister Susan A. Buffett runs The Sherwood Foundation, which got its name from the Sherwood forest in Nottinghamshire, England the hiding place of the legendary Robin Hood and his group.


Peter Buffett: The Charitable Industrial Complex